


A Piece of Each of Our Hearts

by AltUniverseWash



Series: Forever After [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Abuse, Addiction, Alcoholism, Complicated Relationships, Dave x Karkat - Freeform, Escapism, Existential Angst, Existentialism, F/F, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Gender Identity, June x Callie x Roxy, Loneliness, Love, M/M, Married Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Multi, Murder, Mutual Support, Mutualism, Post-Endgame, Recovery, Redemption, Self-Reflection, Social support, Time Loop, Trans Female Character, Vriska x Terezi, davekat - Freeform, defining relationships, relationships, rose x kanaya - Freeform, rosemary, vrisrezi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 25,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22360888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AltUniverseWash/pseuds/AltUniverseWash
Summary: It has been four years since the end of the game and the creation of Earth-C. Rose LaLonde and Kanaya Maryam have settled into married life. June Egbert, Roxy LaLonde, and Callie are happily living together. Even Dave Strider and Karkat Vantas seem about as happy as they've ever been.In the small hours of the night, a call is received that will set events into motion that will forever alter their lives and throw into question their conception of reality itself.This story is a follow-up to The Forever Hole and expands on the implications of the events of that story and the aftermath. This work takes place in an AU where the events of the endgame and epilogue are a bit different than what was portrayed in the Homestuck Epilogues.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, June Egbert / Roxy LaLonde / Calliope, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Terezi Pyrope/Vriska Serket
Series: Forever After [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664167
Comments: 88
Kudos: 36





	1. Rose LaLonde (1st cycle, dead of the night)

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read my previous work, The Forever Hole (https://archiveofourown.org/works/22334776), I would strongly suggest you read that first. This is a basically a direct follow-up to that story and a lot of stuff won't make nearly as much sense without the context (although you can probably figure out most of it).
> 
> This story goes to some very dark places, but I promise you'll see the light again by the end!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Several chapters near the middle have trigger warnings for alcohol abuse/addiction, domestic violence, and major character deaths. Each of these has a beginning note that explains the potential triggers and an end note that briefly summarizes the chapter in a way that tries to avoid discussing the triggering topic as much as possible.

Rose woke from the dream drenched in sweat and shaking.

The worst dreams were never about what she’d been through physically. Never about the pain she’d felt when she died. Never about the injuries she’d received in battle. Those aches came to her when she was awake – faint reminders of a life she’d once lived in a time that now felt like a thousand years ago.

The worst dreams were never about fear. Not the dread of losing everyone and everything she cared about. Not the creeping terror of not knowing if she would live to see the next day – or live to see the face of the woman she loved again. Those dreams came at night, but they faded with waking like a fog that quickly burned away in the daylight.

The worst dreams – the ones that haunted Rose through to the waking and out the other side to the still hours of night when she was alone with her thoughts – those dreams were about losing her very self. Dreams of how the abominations of the Furthest Ring had worked their way inside her mind and turned her into a shell – devoid of everything that made her who she was.

In those dreams, Rose was there all over again. Alone. The Horrorterrors were inside of her mind, singing to her (it sounded so odd to call it that, but at the same time it  _ fit _ ). Telling her that she belonged to them. Everything was just as it had been – just as it was – just as it would always be.

Rose woke from the dream drenched in sweat – and she thanked whatever cosmic force had brought her to this place that she wasn’t alone. Kanaya, Rose’s wife of nearly four years, was sleeping peacefully on the bed next to her. Kanaya’s soft, gray skin glowed faintly in the dim bedroom, casting a soft light that was eerily similar to faint moonlight to the near corners of the bedroom. Everything beyond was steeped in a deep shadow, and the thought of it made Rose wince unconsciously.

She steadied herself, took a deep breath, and silently swung her legs out over the edge of the bed. Careful not to wake Kanaya, Rose padded quietly to the bedroom window and glanced out. The moon was up – and while Earth-C’s moon was ever-so-slightly different than the one she remembered from her childhood, Rose found the sight to be immensely familiar and comforting.

I need a goddamn drink.

The thought hit her with a suddenness and ferocity that Rose was completely unprepared for. She took another breath, held it, and let it out slowly.

Distraction. I need a _distraction._

She repeated the mantra in her head and kept breathing. She stared at the moon and tried to mentally place herself there – out in the expanse with the glittering light of the stars. The stars that twinkled with majesty but hid deeper, more terrifying truths behind them…

That isn’t working!

Rose looked back into the bedroom – over at Kanaya’s gently slumbering form. The troll looked so graceful in sleep – honestly, she looked so graceful basically all the time. Rose smiled, crossing her arms over her chest and shivering. She still needed a distraction.

Walking back to the bed somewhat less quietly than she’d originally been, Rose sat down on the edge and reached over towards her wife.

“Kanaya, are you awake?” Rose asked softly, reaching down to brush Kanaya’s shoulder. The troll mumbled and shifted.

“I must admit that I was not previously… but now I believe that I am,” Kanaya sounded sleepy, but not annoyed. “Is there something that is bothering you?”

Kanaya turned over as she said this and Rose could see her half-squinted eyes and wrinkled-up nose. The faint glow that had been emanating from Kanaya’s skin dissipated as if it had never been there in the first place.

“Oh… something is indeed bothering you. I can see by the way your face looks,” Kanaya’s eyes opened fully and her expression changed – the sleepy confusion lifted and her brow furrowed. “You had bad dreams again?”

Rose nodded. “Not just bad dreams…  _ that _ dream again.” The eldritch terrors of the Furthest Ring. Their horrible singing cries. The absolute certainty that she had  _ never _ left their influence.

Kanaya lifted herself onto her elbows and scooted closer to where Rose sat on the edge of the bed. Without saying anything else, Kanaya put her long arms around her wife’s torso, gathering up the pale purple of her pajamas and pressing her forehead against Rose’s back.

“Do you need me to repeat the words?” Kanaya asked the question in a soft voice. Rose nodded, wordlessly.

“The Horrorterrors are gone. The Furthest Ring is gone. You are here, in this world you have chosen. I am here with you, for however long you’ll have me.” As Kanaya spoke, Rose felt the tension starting to drop away from her shoulders. She settled back, letting the troll hold her closer.

“Forever,” Rose said it in the barest whisper, but she could feel Kanaya’s head nod against her back. “Please… forever.”

She heard Kanaya say something muffled into her back and felt a kiss between her shoulder blades. Slowly, Rose eased herself down onto the bed, navigating past Kanaya and lying back, staring into her wife’s face. Kanaya smiled slightly and reached down to brush a stray hair from Rose’s face. Wrinkling her nose, Rose smiled back.

“I am not annoyed that you woke me up,” Kanaya said. “In case that was a thing that you were perhaps thinking.”

Rose closed her eyes. “Yeah… I’m sorry about that.”

“Am I to assume that everything in the dream happened the same way as the last time?”

Rose nodded. “Same exact thing… I don’t understand what it means…”

“Perhaps the meaning is not especially relevant?” Kanaya’s voice was soft, but Rose could hear the edge of concern in it. “Perhaps it is simply the mind’s way of coping with something unfathomable?”

I have to tell her or I’ll never get back to sleep.

“Kanaya… I… I felt like drinking again when I woke up,” Rose held her breath and waited.

“That is perhaps an understandable reaction to trauma, given your particular history.” There was no trace of judgment in her voice.

“You’re not… mad?” Rose asked, quietly.

Rose heard Kanaya kind of half-laugh. She opened her eyes and saw the troll smiling at her, her hair falling over her delicate facial features. Her fangs stuck out a little on the bottom of her upturned mouth and Rose couldn’t help but smile back. And blush.

“What’s funny?” She asked, trying to sound more indignant than she actually felt.

“When have I ever expressed any degree of anger over something that you obviously had little direct control over and felt extremely guilty about? I feel like I would have been doing a very poor job at loving you if that was the case. Or is this one of the cultural misunderstandings rearing its ugly head? I do not think I have the capacity to be mad at you even if you want that to be my response.”

Rose laughed. Not the small noise that Kanaya had just made, but a full-on chuckle. She couldn’t stop grinning now, no matter how stupid she looked. Kanaya screwed her eyebrows up and looked puzzled and Rose reached out to place a hand on the troll’s cheek.

“No, I… I didn’t want you to be mad at me. It’s an old habit – I still feel like I’m living in the shadows of my past and all that.” She saw Kanaya’s face relax at this.

“That is something that I think most of us can relate to here.”

Rose nodded. “Hey… I love you, Kanaya. Really.”

Kanaya reached up to brush Rose’s hand softly. “I love you as well, Rose.” She paused, but her mouth remained open until she spoke again. “Do you… feel better? Do you still feel the need to consume alcohol?”

“No… I think I’ll be okay,” Rose wrapped her hand around Kanaya’s and squeezed slightly. “I’ll let you know if I’m not okay.”

As if cued by some unseen presence, two phones began to ring in the room. Kanaya’s phone, stored neatly on the bedside table, was the closest. Rose’s was somewhere under her clothes on the floor and Rose tumbled out of bed to scramble for it. Kanaya was already picking up her phone and answering when Rose got to hers.

A picture of June Egbert’s grinning face lit up the screen. Kanaya was already on her phone, listening intently to something.

Why the hell is June calling so late? Something must’ve happened!

She quickly palmed the phone and slide the screen to unlock the call.

“June? What’s wrong?” Rose asked without hesitation.

She heard her friend’s voice on the other end of the line, practically shouting. “Rose, you gotta get over to the Cantown square… I mean, like  _ right now _ you gotta get here…” June paused and it sounded like she was breathing heavily, as if she’d been running.

Rose looked over at Kanaya – her eyes were wide and her mouth hung slightly agape. Rose motioned her confusion to her wife, who only shook her head and pointed at the phone, mouthing  _ I’m not sure _ .

“Oh my God…” June’s voice came back as she caught her breath. “Seriously, you gotta get down here  _ now _ .”

“Why?” Rose asked. “June – what’s happening?”

“It’s Vriska,” Rose heard the name and felt goosebumps raise all along her arms and run right down her back. “Vriksa came back!”


	2. Kanaya Maryam (1st cycle, a short time later)

I still have no idea why she does not want us to fly there.

Kanaya tapped out a sentence on the phone as she walked quickly along under the moonlight. Rose was a few steps ahead, having already hung up the phone.

GA: I Still Have No Idea Why You Dont Want Us Flying   
GC: SH3'S ST1LL K1ND4 FR34K3D OUT BY 4LL TH1S   
GA: While I Understand Completely Based On Our Brief Phone Conversation   
GA: This Still Seems Unnecessary   
GC: L1ST3N 1 GOTT4 GO.   
GC: S33 YOU 1N 4 B1T!

Kanaya grit her teeth and muttered words under her breath that she wouldn’t normally deign to speak. Terezi had been almost painfully vague on the phone, after burying the lead of  _ “Vriska Serket has suddenly arrived on Earth-C. Oh by the way I didn’t bother to tell anyone for twelve hours and decided to call June in the middle of the night because of reasons no one else can comprehend!” _

Apparently, from what Kanaya had been able to gather comparing notes with Rose after June finished talking, Vriska had just kind of appeared in the middle of a field next to Terezi the day before. Terezi had then, for unspecified reasons, taken Vriska and just kind of hung out all day without bothering to tell anyone else. She had then, at around 2 am, called June Egbert to let her know what had happened and also to ask everyone to please not  _ fly _ anywhere to see Vriska so as to not “freak her out” – a statement that was maddeningly obtuse. Roxy and Callie knew as soon as June did (on account of them all living together), and June had called Rose immediately once they finished talking. Terezi had spoken to Karkat (briefly) – which meant Dave knew what was happening – and then called Kanaya and basically just told her to get to the Cantown center and that was it.

So she and Rose, still dressed basically in their PJs, were making the mile-long trek to the town center without really knowing  _ why _ any of this was happening in the first place.

Oh yes we are indeed off to an auspicious start to this day.

All of this was starting to feel very…  _ off.  _ Rose’s dream had woken her up in a state of terror, if her general demeanor and desire to drink (however fleeting) were anything to go by. Terezi was being short with information, and June seemed so excited that she couldn’t stay on the phone long enough to really tell them anything beyond the basics.

Kanaya walked a bit faster to catch up to Rose, who was looking ahead with a scowl on her face.

“Are you going to be okay?” Kanaya asked, reaching out to touch her wife’s elbow. Rose nodded.

“Yeah… I just… wasn’t expecting this, of all things. I have a feeling this is going to be a weird fucking day.”

Kanya didn’t respond, but she was inclined to agree with Rose. Everything felt like it was piling up to something and Kanaya wasn’t exactly sure  _ what  _ – and that scared her more than anything. She didn’t necessarily believe in  _ fate, _ per-se, but this all had an awfully fate-sounding ring to it.

The rest of the walk to the Cantown center was silent. Rose looked troubled, and Kanaya couldn’t blame her. Four years. Four years had passed without word from Vriska. Terezi had been out looking for her more than once – she had found nothing. In all honesty, this wasn’t making a whole lot of sense, and that was worrying.

Cantown itself was comprised of large, corrugated steel structures (the resemblance to literal cans giving rise to the name) that had been placed there largely by Jade Harley. As the only space player to have reached God Tier, Jade had often ended up as the de-facto engineer for a lot of the more complicated aspects of the new society on Earth-C. Though the cans looked quaint, they formed the core of what was essentially a modern city. Lights ran between them, illuminating the early morning with a faint yellow glow.

At the very heart of it all was the Cantown center – officially the “Cantown Municipal Hall” – a large and rather grand building made not of steel but of stone and mortar. At the insistence of the Cantown Mayor, the building had been constructed almost entirely by the Carapacians without assistance from the humans or trolls. It was a testament to the industriousness of their people, and a way for them to establish their own identity. The building had stood for years as a symbol of the hope that Earth-C was founded on.

Smack-dab in the middle of that hope, Kanaya could see as they approached, was a figure that she had almost given up on ever seeing again. Vriska Serket was sitting quietly, her shoulders slumped, her long, black hair flowing over her shoulders. Her clothing was just as Kanaya remembered it and, despite a bit of grime, looked almost brand new. Terezi Pyrope, wearing the exact same t-shirt she  _ always  _ wore, sat very close to Vriska. Terezi had her arm around the other troll’s waist and appeared to be squeezing her in close.

As Kanaya got close enough to see the detail in Vriska’s face, she felt her breath falter. Vriska looked… older. Not physically – she didn’t appear to have aged basically at all – but she had a strangely haggard look in her eyes. It was as if she hadn’t slept in forever and was running herself down to the last ounce of energy. Vriska looked up as Rose and Kanaya approached.

“Oh… hey, Kanaya…” Vriska trailed off and looked down at the ground. She seemed strangely embarrassed.

Rose was the first of them to speak. “Do you mind telling me what the hell is going on here?!” She seemed more confused than angry, despite the yelling.

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Terezi’s voice cut in – rough, yet strangely melodic. “She’s been through a lot and she’s gonna talk to everyone. She wanted to talk to June and you two. Dave and Karkat live too far away.”

“You are aware,” Rose said with a sharp glance at Terezi – a gesture she thought would probably be lost on the blind troll, “that several of us can  _ fly _ , right?”

“Shhh!” Terezi hissed through her teeth. “I know that, but I didn’t want to freak Vris out. Anyway, June’s coming back now.”

Kanaya was about to interject when she finally heard the faint footfalls from inside the Cantown center. The door behind Terezi and Vriska opened and out came a weirdly-cheery June Egbert, clutching a couple of blankets. She handed them to Vriska with a smile. Vriska tried to smile back, but it just came across as a tired kind of half-quirk of her blue-tinted lips. She looked around at the assembled group and then down at her shoes, as if suddenly struck with the strong desire to sink into the ground and disappear.

“Come on,” Terezi said quietly, “you can tell them what you told me. It’s okay… we went through this.” Terezi leaned over and smiled, taking her free hand and lacing her fingers in with Vriska’s.

“I…” Vriska started to speak and paused, continuing to look down at her shoes. She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know if I can. It seems so fucking  _ crazy _ now.”

Kanaya stepped closer to Vriska and leaned down a bit. She adopted her softest, most maternal tone before she spoke.

“Perhaps it is something that will resolve itself as you begin the conversation. We have all been through quite a lot that would be labelled as crazy, after all.” She smiled down at Vriska, who looked back in a way that was decidedly measured.

“Yeah… okay, Maryam, you’ve got it.”   
  


* * *

Years ago, but not many.   
Or, perhaps, many hundreds of years ago.   
  
Time is, after all, a relativistic concept.   
  
Vriska Serket found herself in a place she did not understand.   
  
At first, she was furious – she remembered her fight against Lord English and the black hole yawning wide and pulling them inside.   
  
But, for some reason, she did not die. She found herself alone.   
Alone with thoughts she would prefer not to have.   
About all the people that she’d hurt over the years. About the abuse she dealt out. About the manipulation. About the brutality and violence.   
  
And, at first, she railed against these thoughts.   
It was only the way of Alternian society.   
It was my lusus and how I was raised.   
It was the only way to stop the screams in my head.   
  
And, for a while, these thoughts and her own sense of self-importance comforted her. They kept her sane in a place where sanity had very little meaning.   
If she could maintain that sense of control, she would be okay.   
  
But control is an illusion. It is the sum of all the decisions we make or do not make, and all the decisions made and not made by others on our behalf.   
It is, at best, a concept that gives us a sense of meaning.   
At worst, it is a prison that holds our minds.   
  
So Vriska spent what felt like years…  _ centuries _ trapped inside a prison of her own mind.   
And over that time, she began to do something she had resisted for so long.   
She began to  _ reflect _ on herself.   
And as she reflected, she wanted to take responsibility.   
  
Eventually she came to a realization:   
Either she could languish in an eternal state of self-doubt and indecision.   
Or she could decide to move forward.   
  
Moving forward meant facing the people she’d hurt.   
It meant facing the woman she loved – one of the ones she’d hurt the most.   
It meant facing the possibility that she would be hated.   
Or, even worse, ignored.

* * *

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” Vriska stopped talking and looked around again. Kanaya could see tears welling up in her eyes. June had taken a seat next to Vriska and was smiling in a way that could only be described as “deeply supportive.” Terezi hadn’t stopped holding Vriska’s hand the entire time and had been nodding along the entire time she spoke.

Vriska is very different.

Kanaya supposed if they were giving out the obvious awards for obvious thoughts, that one would probably rank near the very top. Still, it was true. The Vriska she’d known four years ago had been brash and arrogant. She had rushed into danger without thinking twice.

The Vriska sitting before them now felt so much older, but in a way that conveyed hard-won knowledge rather than physical age. The look in her eyes that Kanaya had initially read as exhaustion was something more – a kind of existential uncertainty that made a lot more sense after hearing about her experiences inside the black hole.

“Okay, but you left something out,” Rose’s voice cut Kanaya’s musing down the middle. “How did you even get back here?”

Vriska ignored Rose and looked directly at Kanaya. She felt a sudden and unsettling urge to turn and run in the other direction.

“I had to make a decision.”


	3. Callie (1st cycle, concurrent to the last chapter)

It was important that neither they nor Roxy go with June to talk to Vriska. Calliope…

Excuse me. Callie, please.   
My apologies, Callie.

Callie had been very specific when they talked to their partners about the situation. They had both seemed to understand, although June in particular seemed to feel like she should say something else. Callie gave her “a look” and she dropped the issue. So Roxy and Callie were sitting together in the house that the three of them shared and waiting to hear from June.

“Do you want to try to go back to bed?” Roxy asked from across the table where the two were sitting. She was smiling softly and Calliope…

I just explained this to you.   
I’m sorry, it’s hard.   
I don’t feel like it should be that hard for you, in particular.   
That’s a  _ very _ loaded statement.   
Besides, you don’t even know who I am.   
You’re the one writing this. The only reason we’re having this conversation… **_  
_ ** You’re wrong.   
What?

...and Callie smiled back, trying their best to look reassuring and calm. The truth was that they felt anything  _ but _ calm right now. As a matter of fact, their insides were currently engaged in a battle to see if they were going to cry or throw up first. It was a distinctly unpleasant sensation, and they tried very hard not to let their partner see it.

“So… do you… want something to eat?” Roxy was really trying to make them feel better. She could see that they weren’t quite right.

No, this is important. What do you mean “you’re wrong?”   
Those words seem self-explanatory.   
Not in this context! If you’re not the writer, who are you? **_  
_ ** I’m not exactly sure.   
How is that possible? **_  
_ ** I’m not sure of that either.   
Is there anything you are sure of?   
That you should answer Roxy. _Right now._

“No, thank you,” Callie said with a quick wave of their hand. “I’m sure June will call and let us know what’s happening soon.”

There was something that they weren’t telling Roxy – not out of a desire to deceive or be sneaky, but out of the strong and unbreakable sense that this is how things  _ needed _ to be. Before June left the house, Callie had told her to call them  _ immediately _ if Vriska said…

We’ve been through this before.   
Yes, that’s what I… wait… you don’t know about that, do you?   
I feel a bit out of sorts.

...if Vriska said anything like “we’ve been through this before.” They didn’t tell June  _ why _ this was important (they weren’t, in fact, especially sure yet), but had emphasized that it was  _ extremely _ important to know as soon as she said it. It was giving Callie a good deal of anxiety – just sitting there and wondering when or if they would ever get the call. Across the table, Roxy was looking hopefully at them. She wanted to help so much – she was a good partner and Callie loved her a lot. But this felt like something that they were going to have to be doing alone.

I need to understand – who ARE you?! **_  
_ ** I don’t know if I can explain. I feel like I’m… losing the thread?   
That feels wrong. No, I didn’t say that yet.   
This isn’t helping! I’m worried about my friends and you’re not helping!   
Pretty sure… pretty sure I said it.   
Maybe that was the other time.   
Or one of the ones that hasn’t happened yet.

“Don’t worry about me,” Callie smiled at Roxy and reached across the table, their claw taking Roxy’s hand, warm brown and cool green linking together. Callie kept smiling even though they felt like screaming with every minute that passed without June calling.

“I’m just feeling… a bit out of sorts,” Callie didn’t know why they repeated the phrase they’d just heard.

Vriska knows about me, I think.   
Okay, so who are you? You didn’t answer.   
No, but… maybe Vriska can.   
That’s not very helpful. It sounded like she was pretty confused from what Terezi said.   
This is going to be important, so please listen carefully. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up, but you need to try to remember these conversations. I know that doesn’t mean anything now, but it will.   
Wait…   
Please, stop. You’re all used to thinking in terms of these great big threats to the universe, but there’s other things out there that can tear everything down. Smaller things. I don’t…   
…   
I feel like I’m losing the thread. Did I say that yet? Am I going to say that?   
…   
Thinking in a non-linear fashion is so… exhausting.

“...so I guess it’s nice that she’s back. Even if she was kind of a bitch when she left.” Roxy had been in the middle of a conversation and Callie hadn’t even heard most of it. They nodded along, absently, and tried to concentrate on the other conversation that was happening. Except… it wasn’t anymore. The feeling was gone.

** Am I imagining this? **

****

****

Nothing. Just Roxy across the table from them, her brow furrowed and her lips pursed.

“You all right, babe? You keep looking like you’re spacing out,” Roxy frowned and squeezed their hand tightly. “You worried?”

Callie nodded their head quickly. It wasn’t  _ worry _ so much as something… less defined.  _ Existential dread _ sounded pretty cliche, but it also seemed to fit. They found themselves squeezing Roxy’s hand a lot harder than they intended – then abruptly let go and started tapping the table.

“Seriously, what’s up?” Roxy leaned forward a bit, concern spreading over her face. “You’ve been acting super weird ever since Terezi texted you about Vriska. Like, I get that this is… different… but is it really any weirder than half the shit we’ve already been through?”

Callie leaned back.

You’ve got a decision to make.   
Two options. Meat or candy.   
No… that’s not right…   
…   
Lie or tell her the truth?   
…   
Maybe more… maybe tell her  _ some  _ of the truth?   
You really aren’t helping here.   
I feel like I’ve heard that line before.   
Maybe not word-for-word, but I feel like the sentiment was there.

“I can’t tell you,” they said it plainly, without a trace of anger or malice. “I really wish I could, but honestly I’m afraid of what will happen.”

Callie reached out and took Roxy’s hands in their own. “Can you trust me? Do you trust me?”

Roxy nodded.

“Okay… then… please…” tears started welling up in Callie’s eyes and they weren’t even sure  _ why _ . It felt like this was about to… change... something was about to change.

Cycles are a part of nature.   
I feel like I read that once somewhere.   
Can you please just stop talking for a minute. I want to enjoy this. **_  
_ ** **_While it lasts._ **

“Please just let me enjoy this… while it lasts.” Roxy frowned but said nothing.

Callie’s phone rang, the goofy, grinning face of June Egbert lighting up the screen. If it’s true that cycles are, in fact, a part of nature then this shouldn’t surprise anyone. In fact, it should seem almost poetic in its relevance. Without another word, Callie picked up the phone and held it to their ear.

“Callie?” June’s voice sounded distant, as if she was speaking from the end of a long tunnel.

“Callie… she said the thing. I mean, exactly how you said it. It was weird, she was just kind of sitting there and Terezi was holding her and that was sweet and… and she just looked right at Kanaya and said it. She didn’t explain, she just…”

“June…” Callie interrupted, their face falling as they stared forward at Roxy. “I think maybe… I think maybe one of us did something wrong…”

Isn’t that a little bit melodramatic?   
It sounds like something I would’ve written.   
What does it mean?   
What makes you think I know?   
They said, with a wink…   
an invisible wink, after all – being a disembodied narrative device.   
…   
I think that’s what I was supposed to say.

“Callie, what are you talking about?” both Roxy and June were saying the same thing… or close enough that Callie couldn’t tell the difference. She closed her eyes, and…


	4. Kanaya Maryam (2nd cycle, dead of the night)

The worst dreams were never about what she’d been through physically. Never about the pain. Never about the physical torture of being killed and then reborn as something… other. A being who no longer existed in the space of the living, but didn’t quite belong in the space of the dead either.

The worst dreams were never about fear. Not how terrified she’d been that once the woman she loved discovered what she really was, she wouldn’t be loved anymore. Or that she would lose control in one brief moment and do harm that she could never reverse.

The worst dreams – the ones that haunted Kanaya through to the waking and out the other side to the still hours of night when she was alone with her thoughts – those dreams were about losing her very self. About being so consumed by the hunger that she could no longer come back – losing everything that made her life meaningful and leaving behind only the desire to feed.

In those dreams, she was no longer merely a Rainbow Drinker, but a beast that had spiraled completely out of control. Kanaya could see the faces of the people she loved, and Rose’s face clearest of all. They were filled with an abject terror that would never be wiped clean. Kanaya knew in that moment that she had become the monster she always feared she would.

Kanaya awoke from the dream drenched in sweat. Her light silk nightshirt was clinging damply to her cool, gray skin and her heart was racing. As she woke, the dim light that emanated from her skin faded as she consciously brought it under control. Next to her on the bed, Rose LaLonde was still sleeping peacefully. Kanaya smiled down at her wife, but the feeling of the dream hadn’t left her.

Careful not to wake Rose, Kanaya carefully slipped out of the bed, her bare feet treading lightly on the softly carpeted floor. The room was an eclectic mixture of the two women’s styles – a blend of Kanaya’s precise, colorful decoration and Rose’s haphazard-but-charming clutter of books, papers, and various odds and ends. Kanaya reached down for a book of half-finished wizard fiction and placed it gingerly down on the nearby desk.

Outside the window, Earth-C was bathed in the pale moonlight. Kanaya had never seen the moon of the original Earth, but she found this one to be immensely comforting. Although she loved the brilliant daylight, there was something… romantic about the soft, cool quality of the moonlight that Kanaya enjoyed almost as much. She leaned over, staring out the window.

I need to feed right away!

She was struck by the unexpected brutality of the thought and nearly stumbled backwards away from the window. She glanced over at Rose, still asleep on the bed. It was as if she could hear the blood pulsing through her wife’s arteries and veins.

What I really need is a distraction!

No matter how many times she told herself, it wasn’t helping. The feeling was growing in her, like she had something buried under her skin and no amount of scratching would help to dislodge it. Kanaya made a noise that was halfway between a groan and a whimper, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering.

Why I am having these thoughts all of a sudden?

She walked over to the bed, softly navigating the small piles of clothing and papers that Rose had deposited throughout the bedroom. When she got to the edge, Kanaya set herself down in a manner that could best be described as “delicately” and reached over to place a hand on Rose’s shoulder. As soon as her hand brushed her wife’s faded pajamas, Kanaya smiled and blinked heavily. She softly rubbed Rose’s shoulder through the cotton cloth.

“Rose? Darling? Are you awake?” The human woman made a noise that sounded like  _ MmmMmmnnn _ and rolled toward Kanaya’s hand.

“Yeah… yeah… I’m wide awake,” Rose’s voice was heavy with sleep, but she sounded almost amused. “You okay?”

“I must confess,” Kanaya said, looking down sheepishly, “that I am very much not okay right now.”

Rose blinked heavily and sat up in the bed, shifting over to wrap her arms around Kanaya’s waist. In the blink of an eye, Kanaya found herself being held very closely by her wife and staring directly into her deep, violet eyes. Rose looked worried.

“You had the dream again?”

Wait… this feels… off.

Kanaya nodded. “The same one as before. I…” She knew if she didn’t say anything, she’d never get back to sleep again.

“I felt like… feeding when I woke.” Kanaya didn’t say anything else, but as soon as the words left her mouth she found herself being held even closer by Rose. Kanaya allowed herself to sink into her wife’s embrace and closed her eyes with a little sigh.

“That is perhaps an understandable reaction to trauma, given your particular history.”

No, that’s not right.   
That’s what I said.   
…   
Rose was talking about drinking.

“Rose,” Kanaya muttered, almost to herself, “when’s the last time you thought about having a drink? How do you keep those thoughts away?”

“I don’t,” she was plain about it. “I don’t keep the thoughts away – I deal with them as they come. I… I have help to deal with them.” She accentuated it with a squeeze and press of her head against Kanaya’s neck. Kanaya felt her heart leap.

“I love you, Rose… I truly feel this in my heart,” Kanaya said it quietly and felt Rose’s breath let out.

“I love you too…” Rose trailed off and it was silent for a moment. In that moment, Kanaya felt only the comforting warmth of her wife’s arms wrapped around her. The beat of her heart was so close, and Kanaya didn’t want to ever leave that moment.

We’ve been through this before.

Kanaya felt something drop in the pit of her stomach.

What did Vriska say?

The thought made no sense – why did she just think that? Vriska had been gone for almost four years. Once she fell into the black hole, basically everyone had assumed she was dead. Everyone except for Terezi, and even she seemed to be giving up hope on ever finding Vriska again.

She looked right at you when she said it.   
Who looked right at me?   
You know the answer.   
Vriska?!   
Got it in one. Don’t want to lose the thread.   
Spider puns are great, aren’t they?

“Rose… can I ask you… a delicate question?” Kanaya’s voice sounded muffled, given that she was pressing her head into Rose’s shoulder.

“Of course.”

“Can you… tell me what they sounded like when they used to speak to you?” Kanaya said it as quietly and delicately as she could manage, but she felt Rose’s entire body stiffen up as soon as she heard. Her wife knew  _ exactly _ what Kanaya meant.

“They sang to me. But… it felt like it was always in a key that my brain couldn’t quite understand. It wasn’t singing like I’ve ever heard anywhere else. And…” Rose was beginning to choke on her words and Kanaya could feel her shaking a little.

“The more they sang, the less I felt like myself.” Now she was starting to sob. Kanaya sat back from Rose and extended a hand to brush her cheeks – the traces of tears were beginning to find their way down from her eyes.

“Shoosh…” Kanaya softly whispered as she placed both palms up against Rose’s cheeks and smiled at her. “I am so sorry, darling. I did not mean to bring up something you would rather forget about.”

Rose shook her head and managed a thin smile. She turned her head and planted a kiss on Kanaya’s right palm.

“It’s not your fault… but… what made you ask about that?”

Kanaya shook her head. “Please… I have to admit that I cannot answer that question fully right now. I had a thought, but I do not want you to worry about it. I promise that I will talk to you about it once I have had a chance to reflect, and I promise that it is not something that will imminently harm anyone.”

Rose nodded, brushing her chin against Kanaya’s hands in the process.

“Okay, that’s… that’s fair.” She smiled.

As if cued by some unseen presence, two phones began to ring in the room. Kanaya’s phone, stored neatly on the bedside table, was the closest. Before Rose could even find her way to her phone, Kanaya had reached over and pulled hers from the table. The display read “Terezi” in neat text. Kanaya unlocked the phone and brought it to her ear.

“Terezi?” She waited a moment.

“Kanaya?! Oh, good! Listen, you and Mrs. Wizard need to get over to Cantown center right now. Vriska’s back and you need to hear what she has to say.”

Kanaya felt her blood run cold and her eyes began to water.

“I’m… sorry… did I perhaps mis-hear…”

“No,” Terezi cut her off, “Vriska is back. Get over here. Don’t fly. Don’t ask questions – we’ll explain everything soon.” The phone made its little chime to tell her that the call was disconnected and Kanaya stared straight ahead, looking off into the distance.

We’ve been through this before.   
This hasn’t happened yet.   
You realize that makes you sound insane, right?   
This has already happened...   
Not better.

Kanaya’s head was starting to hurt. She pressed her hands against her temples and closed her eyes tight. Rose was still on the phone and from the excited shouting over the speaker it was definitely June that she was talking to.

“Rose…” Kanaya’s voice was little more than a whisper. When Rose saw her lips moving, she stopped talking.

“June, please stop talking for a minute,” Rose cut June off mid-sentence and sat down on the bed next to Kanaya.

“What’s wrong?”

“Rose,” Kanaya said it again, trying to talk a little bit louder. “I… I can’t go with you. I don’t know how to explain, but… you said you trusted me, right?”

Rose nodded. “Don’t worry about explaining now. This is turning into a fucked-up night – you tell me what’s going on when you figure it out, okay? I’m going to go see what’s up with Vriska. This is crazy.”

Kanaya nodded slightly as Rose got up from the bed and began to put her shoes on, not even bothering to change out of her pajamas.

“Rose?”

“Darling?” Rose smiled down at Kanaya.

“Please be careful. Something is really wrong. I don’t know how to explain it but… it feels like something bad is happening.” Rose nodded along as Kanaya spoke and finally walked over to place a hand on her head. Kanaya looked up into Rose’s sparkling eyes and smiled. A wave of intense longing swept over her and she wanted more than anything to simply stay in this room together for… for as long as it took for things to go back to normal.

It’s not going to stop, you know.   
I very much do NOT know that.

“I promise,” Rose said, leaning over to kiss Kanaya. As soon as their lips pressed together and Kanaya tasted the faint sweetness of her wife’s lip gloss, she felt like her heart was going to break. “I promise I’ll be careful.”

No one can keep that promise. Not anymore.


	5. Terezi Pyrope (1st cycle, the afternoon before the phone calls)

She’d decided to take a walk in the fields that afternoon. The sun was pleasant and warm on her skin and the smells of the summer day were calming. Calm was something that Terezi found increasingly hard to find in those days, and she would gladly take whatever she could get. So she walked out of Cantown and into the woods and the fields, taking in the vast bouquet of scents and tastes and sounds that drifted in from every angle. It was a pleasant enough distraction, at least for a while.

The problem with distractions is that their effect only typically lasts about as long as the distraction itself. After that, the thoughts tend to come rushing back in. Like building a wall of sand at the beach – the illusion of separate and control only lasts until the waves start coming back in.

So every single walk was an escape that lasted just as long as the walk itself. Sometimes not even then. Because Terezi’s thoughts always seemed to return to the same place, time and time again.

Vriska was out there. She knew it. She had no evidence of this whatsoever, but deep in her heart she knew that it was the truth. However long it had been and however unlikely everyone else said it was, Terezi knew that Vris was still out there somewhere.

All alone.

Everything had ended on such a weird note. Everything had…

* * *

Years ago, but not many.

Two trolls were sitting together on a meteor that was rapidly hurtling toward the conflict that would see them either dead or victorious. At that point, there were no other options.

These two had a long history together. It wasn’t always pleasant, and it wasn’t always kind. In fact, it was frequently violent and brutal.

But, then again, they both told themselves that “violent and brutal” were pretty much par for the course where they came from.

They spent a long time talking together. The last few years they’d spent a lot of time together in general. They were closer than they’d been before.

I think that maybe one of the two – the one whose thing should’ve been spider puns – I think maybe she was starting to feel a certain way about her “good friend.”

And maybe the friend – the one whose thing was justice and eating chalk – maybe she was starting to feel a certain way about her “good friend” too.

You know… romance-wise.

But they didn’t really  _ talk _ about it in great detail. They spent a  _ lot _ of time together. And maybe ended up falling asleep in bed together after watching a movie. Or holding hands a lot. Or that time that they spent a considerable amount of time kissing each other.

Yeah, okay, so they were basically a couple.

But, still, they hadn’t really  _ talked _ about it. Just kind of went with things to see where they would go. And now they were about to do something that could very well get one or both of them killed.

I wouldn’t have put money on it, but the spider-one actually told the other that she loved her. Like, she actually said those words out loud.

“I love you, Rezi... “ and she kind of trailed off and blushed a lot. And maybe the other one pretended she didn’t hear.

That was a lie. Terezi has very good hearing. It’s one of her “things.”

Maybe she was taken aback but also it made her heart speed up a whole lot and she felt the sudden urge to hide her face because she was also blushing.

But no one really said anything else. They went on to talk about something else and just kind of… left it like that.

It was something that Vriska thought about a lot in the coming years.

* * *

That afternoon’s walk had been a pleasant distraction. Terezi loved the summer in this part of Earth-C. Everything was so… perfect… almost perfect. At the same time, it made her soul ache a little to consider that someone she cared a lot about wasn’t there to enjoy this with her.

Someone that she loved.

Okay, someone that she loved  _ a lot  _ and maybe wanted to kiss too. Those things didn’t always have to go together, sure, but in Terezi’s case they definitely did.

“Being stupid like a stupid wriggler,” Terezi hadn’t been speaking to anyone. She’d just been walking by herself.

And then, without a perceptible change, she wasn’t. There was someone standing in front of her that hadn’t been there before. She could smell them. She could smell her. She could practically  _ see _ the color of their outfit – their hair – their skin – their lips, still coated in the same blue lipstick that she’d always liked so much.

“Vris? Vriska?” Terezi’s heart was hammering in her chest and she felt her eyes burning with the tears. This wasn’t possible. It wasn’t a thing that could happen. She put her hands up instinctively, reaching out towards the maybe-Vriska… no, there was no uncertainty about this.

There was a brush of movement and Terezi had felt long, soft fingers winding in between her own. Palms delicately pressed to her own. A familiar forehead settled on her own, brushing past some stray hairs. It was all so warm and familiar and comfortable. Terezi felt heat rising to her face that had absolutely nothing to do with the warm summer day.

“It’s really you. I thought…” The tears weren’t going to stop. Terezi felt herself starting to shake and sob and she screwed her lips in and desperately tried not to start bawling in the face of the woman who’d made a love confession to her. She was cool and collected and nothing phased her…

She was crying like a small wriggler and clinging desperately to Vriska’s hands and hoping against everything that this was real.

“Yeah, I do.” Terezi had no idea what Vriska was talking about, but it was  _ her _ voice. Without any shadow of the smallest doubt.

For a long time, the two trolls just stood there together, holding hands, faces pressed close, in the middle of this sunny spot of grass. If Terezi could choose, she would’ve chosen never to leave that place. But sometimes choice isn’t just about one person’s decisions – it’s about the combined decision of a number of different people who don’t necessarily have the same information or the same end goals in mind.

“Rezi…” Vriska muttered. “We need to go somewhere we can talk. Please… like, right now.”

There was something so… different about Vriska’s voice. She sounded so much  _ older _ than she had four years ago. The edge to her voice was still there, kind of, but it was blunted. At the same time, there was an underlying sense of urgency. Terezi didn’t get the sense that this was just going to be a feelings jam.

“No one really comes out here. There’s a place nearby I like to go sometimes,” Terezi let go of one of Vriska’s hands and pulled her along, toward a path that led into a nearby stand of trees. Deep inside the trees there was a treehouse. Jade had put it there, but Terezi had told almost no one about it. The way was clear – Terezi had been there hundreds of times over the last few years.

She felt a tug on her arm. Vriska had stopped moving.

Vriska took a sharp breath.

She took another.

She tried to speak, but all Terezi heard was her frantic breathing. Squeezing her hand and turning back, Terezi cocked her head to the side and smiled.

“You… okay?”

“Rezi… I’ve… been here…”

Terezi smiled. “Yeahhhh… Jade kind of copied my old treehouse.”

“There’s four stuffed dragons inside. The one I remember the most is the red one. It looks like your old one but there’s something different about it – the way it’s stitched or something. Also, it smells nicer than I remember the old one smelling. It looks like someone made a copy from memory but missed a couple bits. The walls are purple Alternian wood but it’s been alchemized so it won’t rot. That’s what was off about it… I just didn’t think about it before. You’ve got a drawing on the wall of the two of us holding hands… or at least you did at one point. You drew hearts…” Terezi could  _ feel _ the warmth coming off of Vriska’s face.

“You drew hearts around us like a  _ dork _ ,” she laughed and there was a glimmer of the old Vriska that came through. Terezi wasn’t smiling – wasn’t laughing. Her mouth hung open and she kept blinking.

“How… how could you know that? Jade built this all after you… after you weren’t here.”

Vriska’s smell changed. It was sad. Lonely. Something that was hard to put into words, but it was definitely there.

“Rezi… I’ve got a lot I need to talk to you about.” Her voice had gone back to the quiet Vriska – the one that Terezi wasn’t very familiar with. The one where all her defenses were turned off. It was kind of freaking her out a little bit, if she was being completely honest.

“Hey… you can talk to me. We’re… we’re…” Terezi wasn’t exactly sure  _ what _ they were.

“I still love you.” Oh shit. Love confessions. “I never stopped loving you… it was… such a long time.”

Four years  _ was _ a long time, but the way Vriska said it, it sounded like she didn’t just mean four years. Of course, that didn’t make any sense, but that seemed to be kind of a running theme lately.

“Hey, heyyyy…” Terezi didn’t finish her sentence. They were at the treehouse now – Vriska let Terezi climb up first and followed shortly after. Terezi walked over and grabbed the red dragon with the slightly-off stitching and took a seat in the corner on a pile of blankets she’d moved in there a few weeks ago.

“Okay, I don’t remember  _ that _ .” Vriska’s feet creaked on the wooden floor as she walked over and let herself fall heavily onto the pile next to Terezi.

The two of them sat together, the pile of blankets naturally sending them cascading into each other. Terezi could feel Vriska shifting around.

“Hey, Rezi… would it be all right if I… held you?” It was that small voice again. Terezi had no idea what happened to her, but it hurt to hear. She nodded and reached out first, taking Vriska in her arms and snuggling close. Pressed up against Vriska, she could feel the moisture building on her cheeks and realized that Vris was crying.

“I have so much to tell you, but I don’t know how much time I have. I have this… just this  _ awful _ feeling that some shit is gonna happen soon. Like I fucked things up somehow when I was in that other place…”

Without thinking, Terezi handed the red dragon to Vriska, who immediately cradled the dragon close. She couldn’t see the woman’s face, but Terezi could sense that she was focusing all of her concentration on that dragon – as if it formed some kind of talisman that she could use to help tell her story.

* * *

Time is an illusion caused by chemicals in our brains. It is a construct that represents a singular axis in a dimensional calculus so vast and incomprehensible that those who try to understand it can be driven to madness by the mere vision of its totality.

Remember that for later – it will become important.

From Vriska’s point of view, she spent several hundred years trapped in a world where she continually lived and re-lived everything she’d ever done, seen, or experienced. She saw things form and un-form and she forgot and remembered a thousand times.

It was only the limitations put in place by her own physical biology that allowed her to retain her own sense of self. It was only her God Tier abilities that allowed her to retain her life. Vriska, of course, doesn’t know this. But I do. And now, so do you. Let’s keep this little secret between you and I… at least while the walls are still up.

And believe me, those walls are coming down in short order. There are, as Vriska herself might have once said, many irons in the fire. Perhaps  _ too _ many irons. And the fire is all-consuming.

We already know the story that Vriska told Terezi. The same story she has told and will tell a few hours from this moment. More or less. She tells Terezi more of it. She tells Terezi exactly what it was that convinced her to make her final decision.

She tells Terezi she loves her at least twice more.

* * *

Terezi felt her cheeks growing hot and suddenly everything felt far too stuffy and uncomfortable. Vriska was right there. She was pressed up against her and she was warm and she was soft and Terezi suddenly felt  _ very _ self-conscious.

This is so fucking stupid – you’ve kissed her like a hundred billion times before. **_  
_ ** But that was just… we were just...

In love. Those were the words she was looking for. But also, this Vriska seemed so  _ different _ from the woman she’d known on the meteor. There was this kind of hesitation about her, but also a kind of reflective depth that was almost terrifying. Like she’d had time to sort through feelings that Terezi had only scratched the surface of.

“We… ah… we have to tell some of the others about this!” Terezi said it with far more confidence than she actually felt. As soon as the words left her mouth, she felt Vriska tuck her head down against her chest and snuggle closer.

“Mmm… no… not yet…” Vriska sounded sleepy. “Wanna stay here for a bit…”

Terezi held Vriska close and closed her own eyes. “Yeah, okay. We can do that. Let’s tell them whenever you’re feeling ready.”

Vriska drifted quietly off into a dreamless sleep. Sitting there in silence, Terezi focused on the warm sensation of her… what were they? Her lover? That felt right enough. Terezi focused on the warm sensation of her lover pressed up against her, settling her down into the pile of blankets.

“I love you too, Vris.”

Terezi was asleep a few minutes later.

If I might interject…   
I feel like they all deserve good things, generally speaking.   
It wasn’t personal before, honestly, what happened.   
…   
But I’m not the one at the wheel anymore.


	6. June Egbert (2nd cycle, a short while after the phone calls)

June was excited! Well, more so than usual. She tended to get excited about a lot of things, generally. Meals. Time with friends. Karkat trying to tell human jokes. Terezi’s roleplaying campaigns. Basically anything that involved her friends was material for excitement.

She figured that she’d experienced enough pain and heartbreak for a long time, so she was going to make up for it by  _ living _ . The one dim spot was that she desperately wished that her friend Vriska could be there to share all of this with. She had a lot to thank Vriska for – even though Vriska had been kind of a mean jerk a lot of the time, she  _ had _ helped June become God Tier. She  _ had _ helped out a lot, and once June went back and retconned the entire timeline she seemed to kind of even out a little bit. Okay, maybe a lot bit.

So when Terezi called and told her that Vriska was not only alive but here on Earth-C and right near Cantown, June had immediately shrieked (which woke up Roxy and Callie) and then started asking a dozen questions. When did she get back? Was she okay? How did she feel? Could she talk right now?

We’ve been through this before.   
What? Who’s that?!

Weird. Anyway, June was super excited for everything she was going to talk to Vriska about. She was gonna ask about everything she’d been doing while she was away. Where did she go? What was it like? And then they could catch up and maybe hang out together and watch some movies. Even if, and June hated to admit this, Con Air was kind of a terrible movie – maybe it was the kind of terrible movie that was also pretty fun to watch with your friends and make jokes about.

June had wanted to fly to the Cantown center but Terezi said no and then Callie said absolutely not and that was that. Callie was usually pretty fun, but when they got serious it was best to just listen to them because they almost always knew what they were talking about. It was actually kind of scary. Callie said that June had to go by herself to the Cantown center and talk to Vriska and Rose. Kanaya was supposed to be there too, but at the very last minute Rose had texted to say that she was staying at home. When Callie had heard that, they looked worried but didn’t say anything else.

The only weird part was that Callie had told June to call them immediately if Vriska said one really specific thing. That was easy, and June was happy to help them out however. They’d all been partners for a couple years now and it was going really well. June was pretty excited about that in general too.

The Cantown center was easy to get to, and June made it there well before Rose, even without being able to fly there. She saw that Vriska was sitting on the steps with Terezi. June ran to go hug her friend… then stopped dead in her tracks. Vriska looked… so different.

“Uh… hey… Vriska…” It suddenly occurred to her that Vriska didn’t actually  _ know _ her as June. That had all happened after she disappeared.

Vriska smiled slightly. “Hi, June. Nice to see you again.” She seemed to pick up on what June was thinking and waved a hand. “Don’t worry, Rezi told me what’s happening. Right on… I’m glad you figured yourself out. Trust me, I get it.”

“June, can you… I dunno, can you get Vris a blanket from inside the center? It’s getting cold out here.” She was right. Despite the summer weather earlier, it was turning downright chilly!

June hurried inside the building and made quick work of the search for a blanket. Grabbing an extra one for Terezi, she walked outside to see Rose LaLonde had already walked up. She was kind of glaring at Terezi as if they’d exchanged words, but June had no idea what had been said.

You missed something important.   
What does that mean? I don’t know who you are!   
It doesn’t matter. But you still missed something important.   
Little details. They add up.

“Hey, Rose!” She said, cheerfully. Rose nodded but kept looking over at Vriska and Terezi.

When Rose spoke again, it was quiet but carried easily across the distance to where June was standing. “I think that Vriska had better tell us what’s going on now.”

* * *

Vriska told the story again, but once again she left out the part that she didn’t tell anyone else. The part she didn’t even tell Terezi about.

I know… because I was there. I think you do too.

We don’t need to listen to the re-telling because we’ve both heard it before. We’ll hear it again too. These things work in cycles.

Imagine if you were to tip a stone down a steep hill.

At first it just rolls along slowly. But before you know it, it’s moving faster and faster.

Eventually it’s moving fast enough that it won’t stop until it hits something.

I use this metaphor because the rock is already well on its way.

* * *

When the story was finished, June was staring at Vriska. She waited. She waited. Finally, she burst over to Vriska, bent over, and gave her an enormous hug.

“Oh my God! That sounds  _ horrible _ and I’m so sorry!” June squeezed Vriska, who smiled softly and patted the young woman’s back gently.

“It’s okay,” Vriska said. Then, without missing a beat, she turned towards Rose and spoke as if she weren’t even thinking about what she was saying.

“We’ve been through this before.”

June felt her guts drop out. She stood up quickly, letting Vriska go, and took a step back. Rose looked more confused than anything else, but June felt raw terror moving through her.

How did Callie know?   
Does it even matter?   
I mean… yeah, kinda!   
You know they approach things differently than you do.   
In that respect they’re a lot more like myself.   
But who are you?!   
I’m not sure anymore.

Steadying her rapidly increasing breathing, June pulled out her phone and immediately dialed Callie’s number. The phone picked up immediately and June spoke without even waiting to hear Callie’s voice.

“Callie?” June felt like she was talking from very, very far away.

“Callie… she said the thing. I mean, exactly how you said it. It was weird, she was just kind of sitting there and I gave her a hug because I missed her so much… and she just looked right at Rose and said it. She didn’t explain, she just…”

“June…” Callie interrupted, their voice sounding too distant. “I think maybe… I think maybe one of us did something wrong…”


	7. Rose LaLonde (3rd cycle, the dead of night)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter deals with themes of alcohol addiction/abuse, as well as domestic violence.
> 
> These are not shown in explicit graphic detail, but are described in a way that might be disturbing to some readers who have these triggers.
> 
> There is a brief summary of the chapter in the end notes without details on the triggering content if you would like a summary. The TW content is still mentioned briefly, but without descriptions of the details.

Rose didn’t dream anymore.

Once she had – the dreams would come to her when she least expected. The worst kinds – the ones where she was no longer herself and nothing anyone could do would save her.

But now, she slept in a pleasantly dreamless stupor every night – the alcohol saw to that. Alchemizing liquor was trivial for her, and she’d discovered some tricks to basically make an endless supply of whatever she felt like drinking. Once she’d been quite fond of fancy mixed drinks. She still enjoyed them, but had recently begun to favor hard liquor in its most undiluted variety. The end result was the same, but it got her there a lot faster.

Rose woke from her dreamless stupor in a cold sweat. One side-effect of the constant supply of poison in her system was that she often didn’t sleep particularly  _ well _ , even if she did technically sleep… at least by one definition of the word. She was, at least, fairly sure that her God Tier powers would keep her from dying from alcohol poisoning. Well, at least on a permanent basis, even if the process would pretty well suck ass.

“Mrmmm…” Rose mumbled incoherently and swung her legs out from the messy bed. Beside her on the ruffled, stained sheets was a half-finished bottle of some kind of clear liquor. Vodka? Probably vodka. Rose’s head was pounding and she needed to take something for it first.

You overdid it again.   
How about you fuck off?   
I don’t understand what I did to you.   
Nothing. I just don’t feel like talking right now, asshole.

The floor was littered with discarded bottles and various wrappers. Pieces of paper with varying scribbles lay scattered and torn throughout the bedroom. A half-finished journal of wizard fiction lay directly in her path. Half of the pages were torn out. Rose bent over, retrieved the journal, and promptly threw it against the furthest wall.

“Fucker.”

She hiked her pajama pants up around her waist and slowly made her way toward the bathroom, looking for something for her head.

Are you okay?   
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!   
I mean… you have the powers of a God of Light and you’re just kind of…   
…   
Living like a disgusting drunk.

“Oh yeah, like someone’s here to fucking judge me, right? You look around? You see this? NO ONE FUCKING LIVES HERE!”

Rose dropped to her knees in the middle of the floor and started sobbing uncontrollably.

She fucking left me a year ago, you know?   
I’m sorry, I’m a bit out of sorts… I don’t know who you mean.   
Kanaya, you fuck… Kanaya… she… she...

The crying came out in great, snotty sniffles and Rose doubled over, bending down toward the dirty carpet.

“She said she couldn’t do this anymore… that she tried so hard to help but that she couldn’t watch me…”

She couldn’t watch me keep killing myself.   
I’m sorry – do you need me to leave?   
She said if I didn’t go get some help, she didn’t know what else to do.   
…   
I told her to go fuck herself and then I...

The memory was going to come back. She needed something else to drink. That bottle of “vodka” (or whatever it was) on the bed would do. Rose pushed herself up and stumbled back to the bed, her headache temporarily deprioritized. She grabbed the bottle from the bed and unscrewed the cap. With quick, halting gulps she downed most of the contents of the bottle.

I fucking… I fucking HIT her. I lost it and I fucking slapped her in the face.   
…   
I was so fucking drunk and ANGRY and she was just trying to help me.   
…   
And she looked at me and she was so hurt… and she just…

I believe it would be for the best if I were to move out now.

And just like that, Rose had a big, empty house all to herself. A library full of books she never read anymore. A sewing room where nothing was gathered but cobwebs and dust. A bedroom where she spent most of her time testing the limits of just how much alcohol it would take to drop herself so far down that she never needed to come up into the Land of Memories and Regrets ever again.

The vodka was starting to take hold now.

But not fast enough. Rose felt a churning in her stomach and suddenly she needed to be in the bathroom  _ right the fuck now _ . She ran, banged through the door, and barely made it to the toilet before her stomach decided to upend it’s mostly-liquid contents into the bowl. It kept coming until Rose was just dry heaving over an empty toilet. Eventually that stopped and the shaking began. Then that too stopped and Rose was just sitting on the floor of the bathroom, crying in her pajamas. Right then, she felt more like a scared child than she ever had as an actual child.

Why am I even telling you any of this? You’re not real.   
I wouldn’t go so far as that…   
But I do feel very much out of my element here.   
What are you even talking about?!   
I’m not sure.   
Great. An unreliable narrator. How fucking original.   
I’m not the narrator. That much I’m sure of.

With a great deal of effort, Rose managed to push herself to her feet again and move back into the bedroom. After a few minutes of rummaging through scattered papers and assorted trash, she found her phone, buried underneath a half-finished suit made of what had once been a luxurious deep purple fabric. The screen was cracked and she had never bothered to alchemize a new one, but it still worked well enough.

What are you doing now?   
Not talking to you, that’s for fucking sure.

She unlocked the phone and checked the notifications. Nothing. No messages.

She’s not going to contact you. Not in this version of things.   
Shut up, what the fuck do you know?   
About this? A great deal more than you, apparently.   
Sure. You’re a narrative device.

It wasn’t the first time she’d done this. A while ago, back when everything first happened between her and Kanaya, she’d tried to text her wife… ex-wife a bunch. She’d tried to call her. Tried to contact her in some kind of way to tell her how very sorry she was. To explain that she had just… just lost her temper. Just let the drinking get the better of her.

GA: Please Do Not Ever Contact Me Again   
GA: I Have Made My Decision   
GA: I Do Not Want To Speak To You   
GA has blocked TT

And… that was it.

I told you.

“Can you please just shut the fuck up?” Rose buried her head in her hands and began to sob. Every single day she missed Kanaya. Every single day she drank to forget how much she missed Kanaya and keep the damn dreams away. Every single day it just got worse, and worse, and worse. And most of the time when she wasn’t drinking, she was wishing she had just died.

Sometimes she envied the ones that did. She wished she had decided to take on Lord English and go out in a blaze of glory like Vriska did. Kanaya would’ve been sad, she imagined, but at least she would never have to see the kind of monster Rose had turned into.

You know that there are other outcomes, right?   
What’s that even supposed to mean?   
Are you always this vague?   
…   
Not that I would expect a disembodied voice in my head…   
Who is almost certainly not real…   
To make any fucking sense!   
We’ve been through this before.

Rose choked mid-sob and looked around, as if she was suddenly going to see someone or something that she hadn’t before. Why did that sound so familiar? Images swarmed around in her head, bombarding her with ideas that made no sense. Waking up in the dark, alone. Waking up next to Kanaya. A sense of impending dread. Kanaya telling her she couldn’t come with her. Vriska was looking at her. Vriska didn’t look like she did before… something about her had changed.

That’s not how it happened! She said she couldn’t be with me anymore!   
You’re getting things confused.   
Don’t worry… that part is normal.

Without even thinking, Rose took her phone and threw it full-force across the room. It hit the corner of the desk and exploded into several pieces. Rose screamed. She put her head in her hands and just screamed without words or meaning.

I CAN’T FUCKING DO THIS ANYMORE!

No one called Rose anymore, not really. Her friends had mostly given up on trying to actually reach out to her. But someone had just tried to call her – for the first time in almost a year. June Egbert was desperately trying to get ahold of her, having already spoken to most everyone else.

I think you missed it this time.   
I don’t fucking care…   
Cycles are a part of nature.   
I feel like I read that once somewhere.

Rose sat on the filthy floor in her lonely, empty house. She scuttled over to pick up the unfinished suit – the last thing Kanaya had been making for her. She cried... she cried until she ran out of tears. Then she just sat there and stared into space. She told herself that she would stay there until the sun finally rose – the dawning of a new day that would be exactly the same as all the rest that preceded it and all the rest that would come after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose is alone in her bedroom and drinking. It is explained that she began to drink heavily to deal with her ongoing nightmares and drinking allows her to block the dreams out.
> 
> She begins to have a conversation with a narrator, who chastises her for her excessive drinking. It is explained that Kanaya Maryam left Rose a year ago after Rose became enraged and ended up slapping Kanaya. Her drinking has become even worse since Kanaya left.
> 
> Rose checks her phone and sees the last message from Kanaya was telling her not to contact her ever again. Rose sits down and waits for dawn to come.


	8. Kanaya Maryam (3rd cycle, sometime during the day before the phone calls)

Dave Strider and Karkat Vantas were nothing if not excellent and considerate hosts. Something about their combined energy seemed to balance out in a way that was unexpected but also highly effective. Over the last four years, Dave had seemed to lighten Karkat up a little bit – he was even trying out human comedy now, if somewhat badly. Karkat, in turn, had brought a touch of seriousness to Dave’s overall demeanor. The result was a pair of men who could probably best be described as “paternal,” per Kanaya’s understanding of the word.

They had been lovely and considerate over the last year. When Kanaya had… when Rose had…

When everything had happened between her and Rose, she made the decision to move out. She no longer felt comfortable or safe with the woman that had been her partner for so long. It was a hard decision, but it was something that needed to be done. So Kanaya had asked Dave and Karkat if they would mind terribly if she were to move in with them for a while. Just until she got herself sorted out.

It had turned out to be an excellent decision. Kanaya lent a certain stylistic charm to the place and helped to moderate minor disputes between the two. It turned out that they adored having her and, despite her proposing that she move out after a couple months, insisted that she continue to live with them. They’d added another wing to the house for her to stay in and expanded a few things to make the situation more comfortable for all of them.

The house itself was a few hundred miles north of Earth-C’s equator in a place that was warm but not oppressively so. Kanaya supposed that Dave had picked the location – it resembled the descriptions he’d given of Earth’s “Texas hill country” with its rolling terrain and wide variety of interesting flora. Kanaya was especially fond of the small blue flowers that grew during the Spring season.

They were detached from the budding societies on Earth-C. The Carapacian empire was a couple hundred miles to the north, the Sea Trolls lived basically on the other side of the planet, and New Alternia was three thousand miles and an ocean away. Dave had insisted that Jade alchemize him a ridiculous flying car (he said it was based on something called a D-Loreon or something like that) that got them to the mainland, but it was cramped and Kanaya generally tried to avoid heading back into society.

In truth, Kanaya welcomed the isolation. What had happened with Rose…

Wasn’t supposed to happen.   
Excuse me, but who are you?   
A passenger, apparently.   
I do not know what that even is supposed to mean.   
We spoke, briefly. The last time around.

What had happened with Rose was something she still thought about all too often. It wasn’t the physical pain – the slap hadn’t even hurt very much – it was the fact that the woman she’d loved had been so far gone that she would even think to do that. The Rose she knew before – the Rose she’d fallen in love with – would never have laid a finger on her.

So “she loved” became “she’d loved” – “she  _ had _ loved” – a grammatical twist that forever relegated something to the domain of the past.

Time is an illusion. Caused by chemicals in our brains.   
I don’t really need to hear this right now.   
It’s a conversation we’ve had before.   
Or that we’ll have in a couple hours.   
Or maybe that we’ve never had.   
Oh that narrows things down a lot.   
I’m using sarcasm there in case that was not clear.   
Oh, Kanaya – you are by far my favorite.

And right now she was sitting alone at a long marble counter in a large kitchen. Karkat and Dave had gone out for a walk and she was alone with her thoughts. It was an unpleasant and sometimes dangerous place to be.

And apparently getting a lot stranger as of late.   
I’m trying to think of what kind of puns you could use.   
You know… as your “thing”   
Excuse me?   
Well, the sea trolls all have fish puns.   
And I tried to tell Vriska she should do spider puns.   
She wasn’t a fan.   
But what about you…   
Fashion puns? Vampire puns?   
I don’t really like to talk about that last bit.   
I know.   
It’ll be relevant too – give it…   
I don’t know… I’d say maybe one more turn around, at the rate things are going.

Kanaya groaned and leaned down, placing her head on the cool stone counter and closing her eyes.

What bothered her the most was how out-of-nowhere this all seemed to be. She knew Rose had been struggling with her nightmares and the alcohol was such an easy-sounding solution. But she had really thought that she and Rose were communicating. Kanaya thought that she’d create a safe place for her wife to express herself – somewhere that she felt comfortable enough to open up and talk about those dark parts of herself that she was still struggling with.

“Stupid…” Kanaya muttered to herself. “I could’ve helped you before it got that bad.”

You do realize you don’t control the actions of others, right?   
At best you influence them…   
But sometimes they just… act on their own.   
So what? I loved her… I think I still love her…   
That’s probably tremendously unhealthy. I have some experience with this kind of thing.   
I know it’s not healthy. The whole last year hasn’t felt particularly healthy.   
Wait, what did you just say? How long?!   
No no no no no....   
That isn’t right…   
Believe me, I have been quite astute in my perception of time as of late.   
That can’t be right. That’s too long.   
Too far off the main line…   
I’m not convinced you are even real.   
Let alone that you know what you are speaking about.

Nothing. Because, of course, that was just her brain batting nonsense around to try to distract her from her feelings. That wasn’t working particularly well, but at least it was trying. She had to give it credit for that, at least. Kanaya laughed, but there was no humor or joy in it.

Her phone buzzed in her skirt’s pocket. Of course she has pockets on her skirt! Kanaya Maryam is a practical lady as well as a stylish one!

This isn’t right. This isn’t supposed to happen yet.   
Oh shut up.   
Don’t answer it.   
If you’re even a little bit okay with your life as it is, don’t fucking answer it!   
Shut up. Who even said I was okay with my life as it is?

Kanaya retrieved the phone from her pocket and placed it to her ear without even checking to see who was calling.

It was Terezi’s voice on the other end of the line – she sounded worried.

“Kanaya? Are you still at DaveKat’s? Do they still have that stupid flying car? Do you know how to drive it?”

“Yes, they still have the car. I am familiar with its operation, despite my distaste for its aesthetics and general cramped nature inside.”

“Good. I’m sending you a location. Go there now, don’t ask questions, and don’t tell anyone.”

That all sounded  _ highly _ suspicious. Kanaya felt like she needed additional information before…

Go. Go now.   
Why should I even listen to you?   
Vriska. It’s Vriska. She’s probably starting to figure out what’s happening.

“This is important,” Terezi had kept speaking. “You can’t tell anyone else why you’re going. Make some shit up if you have to, but don’t let them know.”

Terezi paused, but Kanaya could hear the soft hum of the background noise over the phone. She was still on the line.

“Vriska is back, and she said she needs to talk to you.” The line went dead. Fifteen seconds later, a text notification appeared on the screen with a single map location attached.

Kanaya sat at the counter, her mouth slightly open, staring at the phone.

If she’s figured it out, then maybe there’s still a chance.   
A chance for what?   
To stop this from getting worse.   
…   
Because I’ve seen some of what’s going to happen…   
And it can get a  _ lot _ worse.


	9. Vriska Serket (3rd cycle, that same afternoon)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter involves a major character dying to alcohol poisoning. It also touches on themes of alcohol abuse and domestic violence (briefly).
> 
> It isn't graphically described, but it is described in such a way that it might be disturbing to readers with those potential triggers.
> 
> If you want, the end notes have a brief description of the chapter with less detail if you want a summary with less possibly triggering content.

We’ve been through this before.   
Oh God fucking damn it…   
You have got to be fucking kidding me.   
What?   
I did it. I did the thing. I made my decision. I’ll fucking talk to everyone.   
I don’t care if they forgive me or not anymore, I just want to move on with my life.   
Something you apparently have no fucking intention of doing. I guess.   
It doesn’t matter now. You’re losing the thread.   
I still… I still think the puns would lighten the mood a little.   
It’s getting so bad now.   
I think it’s going to get worse.   
You sound different than before – what the shit happened?   
I don’t feel right. Very out of sorts.   
Oh shit… you’re not in control here.   
Like, at all. You can’t do what you could in the other place.   
You’re going to start forgetting things soon. Very soon.   
Hold onto what you can…   
Cycles are a part of nature.   
...   
We’ve been through this before.   
…   
That last one… I think that’s the one you should keep in your heart.   
If you care about any of them, at least.

The fog on Vriska’s mind was starting to lift. Looking into Terezi’s face and seeing her weeping with tears of joy and relief. Seeing how utterly shocked she was that Vriska was even here in the first place.

She loves you. She said it once.

“You…” Vriska started to talk, as if to herself. “You love me?”

Terezi made a sound that could only be described as a squeak.

“What?! What… I…” Terezi was flushed, her gray skin tinged deep teal. Vriska held her hands and stepped in a little closer. After everything – after all the hundreds of sweeps – she didn’t want to hurt her anymore.

“Sorry… you don’t have to say anything. It was just a stupid thought.”

Terezi kind of wiggled her nose. “It… okay, so what if… what it were maybe true.” She looked down, unconsciously. “Would that… bother you?”

Vriska leaned in and kissed Terezi on the cheek. “No.”

This is touching.   
Really, I genuinely mean it.   
…   
But you need to talk to some folks.   
The longer you wait, the worse this will get.   
Who? What the fuck?! I thought we were done with this.

Vriska took a deep breath. Panic was starting to rise up inside her. Something about this felt horribly urgent all of a sudden.

“Listen, Rezi… I’m serious about this. I had so much time to think about this and I love you. You’re fucking amazing. I want to spend a lot of time with you… this is gonna sound crazy but I think we might’ve already done that.”

She shook her head, frantically. “Never mind – it’s hard to explain. But right now, I need to talk to some people and I mean  _ right the fuck now _ . Can you help?”

Terezi was nodding.

“Okay, okay…” she stopped and concentrated. The names came right away. “Rose and Kanaya. First them. Also John. And Calliope.”

Terezi sniffed. “Uh… some stuff changed while you were away. So… Callie is what they like to be called. Also… uh… so… John isn’t John anymore. She’s June. She came out like three years ago or something.”

Vriska blinked, paused, and laughed. “No shit. Good for her. Okay, I need to talk to Rose, Kanaya, Callie, and June.” She saw Terezi’s face and something about her look was off. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Rose… she’s… she’s not  _ okay _ anymore. The drinking got really bad, then she hit Kanaya and Kanaya moved out. Now Rose lives by herself and no one talks to her. I doubt she’d even agree to come if you wanted to talk to her.”

“FUCK! This is important, damn it!” Terezi winced. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m not mad at you. Just… I’m forgetting stuff I need to remember every second we wait. I already feel like if I wait much longer I’ll just forget everything and then it’ll just be business as usual… except it’s not. Something’s really, seriously wrong. Like, on a fundamental level.”

A universal constant got altered.   
What the fuck does that mean?   
Some basic element of the universal equation got changed.   
I would imagine it has something to do with your escape from your former prison.   
Probably not entirely, but at least in part.   
I’m not fucking going back. You know that, right?   
I wasn’t going to suggest that. Just… tell the others and maybe you can figure something out.

“Okay,” Terezi was already letting go of Vriska’s hands and digging for her phone. “I’ll call June and maybe she can get through to Rose. Kanaya is staying with Dave and Karkat so I’ll call her next. Callie lives with June – that’ll be easy.”

Terezi ushered Vriska through the field with haste, showing the way to the treehouse. Vriska was struck, for at least the third time, by how this was the same version of the treehouse she’d seen while she was trapped.

June was called and promised to do everything she could to get ahold of Rose. Callie said that they would come over with June within the hour. Terezi finally called Kanaya and was assured that she would be over within the hour.

“So…” Terezi had waited a few minutes to speak again. “About… about earlier.”

Vriska blushed deep blue. “Oh shit, I actually fucking said that out loud, didn’t I?” She fidgeted with her shirt.

“It’s true. I guess I should’ve probably said something before you… y’know… went away for so long. What even  _ happened _ while you were gone?

Should I tell her? How much do I tell her?   
…   
Fuck you – help me out here!   
I don’t know. We’re getting so far away from what I know.   
Another one or two more of these and I don’t even think I’ll be able to help.

“Fuck it,” Vriska said it out loud. “Terezi… I’ve got some crazy shit to tell you and you’re not gonna fucking believe me but I need to say it. And the weirdest part is… I feel like I’ve already told you this before.”

Terezi looked down and was very quiet. Vriska saw that she was holding the red dragon plush – the exact same one that Vriska had been holding in that terrible place. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “Vris… you were gone for so long. Things have gotten so bad here. Everyone’s falling apart and it feels  _ so _ wrong the way things are.”

She looked up towards Vriska and her nose twitched. “Do you know that I saw us together, before the final battle. I… I could remember everything that happened in the alternate timelines. I saw us dead together and we were holding each other right before the dream bubbles collapsed. I’ve seen all these different converging realities and… somehow I feel like it’s happening again.”

Without asking again, Vriska began.

The black hole was like another fucking world, but it didn’t follow the same rules as our world does. I guess everyone thought I was in there for a couple sweeps… I should use years since that’s what we’re doing now... 

To you it seemed like four years. To me… it was fucking eight hundred or so. But I didn’t live it normally – I kept jumping back and forth and repeating things and reliving old memories and stuff. I kept ending up alone with all my thoughts. I kept thinking about all the ways I hurt everyone.

But with all that shit, I started hearing a voice. Not something in my head, but from all around me. I don’t remember everything, but it was like someone was writing my story. Or trying to write it. Things kept changing and shifting around. They did weird shit too – I think at one point they basically tried to narrate Mindfang fanfic and I could see it happening.

Then I just got fed up and told them to fuck off – but I realized that I could kind of control things too. They kept saying the same shit about making decisions, and I kept feeling like there was shit I needed to take care of back here. So… so I wanted to be with you and I wanted to stay with you and make everything better.

The craziest fucking thing is… I’m pretty sure I did this a bunch of times. Rezi… I think I’m doing something bad. I think I’m messing stuff up and making it worse.

Vriska was shaking by the time she finished. Tears streaked her cheeks and her eyes were downcast. Terezi, who had been listening intently, simply slid over and wrapped herself around Vriska. Neither of them said anything more for a while.

Time is an illusion caused by…   
Chemicals in our brains.   
Fuck, I know that. You already said that, I think.   
Maybe not to me, but I know you said it.   
Just shut the fuck up and let me enjoy this…   
While it lasts.

It was a half hour later that the first of their guests showed up. June, being able to fly with Callie, came directly in the treehouse. Moments later, Kanaya was climbing the ladder from below. The mood was subdued. There were no hugs or enthusiastic greetings this time around.

This is where the walls really start to break.

June was shaking her head. “I couldn’t get through to Rose. Her phone is shut off, I guess.”

“Fuck it,” Vriska said. “We’re doing this now. Cards on the fucking table. Who’s hearing a weird voice rambling about weird bullshit and saying the same things over and over again. Don’t ask me any fucking questions, just raise your fucking hands.”

Callie. Kanaya. And then June reluctantly raised her hand as well.

“Fucking fantastic. Great.” Vriska winced and frowned. “Talking about how we’ve done this before or something like that?”

Callie and Kanaya. June put her hand down.

“If I may,” Callie looked at the others and waited for them to nod. “I have been hearing this voice since earlier this afternoon. Shortly before June received the call from Terezi. It has continued to occasionally speak its peace, completely unprompted.”

“It knows things.” Kanaya was glaring. “But also it doesn’t know a lot of things, and is often saying things that are nonsensical or ridiculous.”

June was staring at the floor. “All it said to me was that I needed to make sure Callie came with me when we went here. They’re important somehow, but it wouldn’t say exactly why.”

These were things that surprised Vriska a lot less than she was expecting.

“My theory on all this,” she began without hesitation, “is that the voice is the same thing I was talking to while I was stuck in the black hole. I think it’s something that has an easier time understanding non-linear reality than we do, but I also don’t think it can really  _ do _ much outside of the black hole.”

Callie was looking intently at Vriska. “I believe that you’re essentially correct, Vriska. Based on some of the things it has said to me. It is also able to respond clearly and knows things that I had no way of knowing, hence my belief that isn’t a figment of our imaginations or a delusion of some kind.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Vriska shot back quickly. She looked at each of the women in turn before continuing.

“Look… I don’t know how the hell to get things back on track. I’m not even sure why I think… or know that they’re not. I just figure we’re doing something wrong, so we’re gonna have to put our heads together on this one. Dave still do his time bullshit?”

“No…” Kanaya was shaking her head. “I think even if he wanted to he couldn’t. Something about his abilities seemed to be intimately tied to the rules of the game and the presence of Skaia. Here in this new world he doesn’t seem to have the same control.”

“Well fuck… that’s not helpful.” Vriska looked down. It would still be good to let him and Karkat know what was happening. She pulled out her phone.

AG: Hey fuckers, listen up.   
TG: yo what’s all this about?   
CG: WHAT IN THE BULGE-MUNCHING FUCK… VRISKA?!   
CG: KANAYA LEFT A NOTE BUT I DIDN’T WANT TO BELIEVE IT   
AG: Yeah I'm 8ack and 8asically the gre8st ever.   
AG: So shut up and listen dickholes.   
TG: I mean shit she makes some good points   
CG: OH SHUT THE FUCK UP. WHAT IS IT?   
AG: I'm coming over. Gotta figure some shit out.   
TG: dope   
TG: we’ll put on the goddamn motherfucking tea kettle   
CG: WE WILL NOT DO THAT.   
CG: THEY CAN HAVE INSTANT COFFEE.   
CG: LIKE ALL THE OTHER UNGRATEFUL FUCKERS WE DON’T LIKE MUCH.   
AG: Karkat, I'm hurt! ::::(........   
AG: That was me crying 8tw   
CG: GLAD TO SEE FOUR YEARS IN A FUCKING BLACK HOLE   
CG: DIDN’T MAKE YOU ANY LESS OF AN ASSHOLE   
TG: yo seriously, get over here we’re all good   
CG: YEAH FINE ALL RIGHT. FUCK YOU ALL.   
CG: WE’LL PUT ON THE TEA KETTLE.

Vriska set the phone back into her pocket and smiled. She was putting on a brave face, but inside her stomach was rolling. She couldn’t shake the incredibly  _ wrongness _ that she felt about everything.

“We’re all going to Dave and Karkat’s place. We’re going to talk this over and try to outline the timeline and figure out what’s wrong. I… I’m forgetting stuff pretty much constantly and the less I remember about that other place the harder this is gonna get. I don’t know how I know that, but just fucking trust me. We are going to figure this shit out!”

You don’t believe that.   
OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE NOT YOU AGAIN!   
I don’t think this is going to work.   
I really need you to fucking stop talking now, okay?

The others looked resolute. They were nodding along with what Vriska said. They had a plan now. They had a course of action – a direction. This was what she was good at. Irons in the fire – plans in the works. She’d been able to engineer their defeat of the Condesce and Lord English. She’d been able to plan her way out of that fucking black hole alternate reality. Maybe she was tempered now – evened out by what felt like centuries of self-growth – but she was still basically the greatest.

“Hell fucking yes, we are gonna figure this shit out.”

* * *

Hours in the future, but not many.

After discussing their plans for quite some time, June tries desperately to call Rose again. For some reason, they all believe that she is an integral part to setting things back the way they “should be.”

But I think the main problem they have is a narrow and limited view of causality and time.

Nothing is ever as it should be… because that is not a phrase that has any meaning.

Things simply are as they are.

Maybe in other realities – other timelines – they would be different. Maybe better. Maybe worse. But in the end, reality is simply what it happens to be in any given version of reality. That probably sounds trite… I suppose it is. It’s also true.

It doesn’t matter what they discussed. “ _ But why” _ you plead – you want to know what clever plan Vriska devised. You want to know what theories they came up with. You want to know how each piece fits into each other piece and how this will all be resolved.

I’m sorry… we’re not there yet.

I will tell you this: Vriska was wrong that night.

She had good theories, yes, but they were also  _ wrong _ theories. She’d already forgotten so much about her time in that other place. Maybe if she remembered more, she would have figured it out. Or maybe not.

Maybe what she really needed was to re-think the entire decision making framework. To re-evaluate her own priorities. Sometimes, our actions can have unexpected consequences even when our intentions are genuinely good.

I feel like Vriska knows this… perhaps better than most.

* * *

June was shaking her head and looking worried. She was pacing back and forth and Vriska wanted to tell her to cut that shit out, except that Vriska was feeling just as worried. They had a plan, but getting in touch with Rose was a big part of it.

“I don’t understand,” June was saying. “She won’t answer! She won’t call back. We’re going to need to go over there and get her!”

Vriska stared ahead. This felt wrong. “June and I will go. We’re both God Tier – we can both fly. It’ll be faster than taking that dumb car.”

Have you stopped to consider something.   
Not a good fucking time.   
The consequences of breaking the narrative this much.   
REALLY not a good fucking time.

* * *

The flight to Rose’s house went by in grim silence, and June and Vriska arrived around 2 or 3 in the morning to a series of dark windows. They set down near the front door and Vriska walked up and knocked heavily, then rang the doorbell, then knocked again.

“She’s probably sleeping off the drinking,” June said, her voice tinged with sadness. “She does that all the time now. I think I’m the only one who even cares anymore… even Kanaya… I mean, I think Kanaya does but… Rose hurt her a lot.”

It did hurt Vriska to hear that. Especially that Kanaya was in so much pain. Okay, so maybe there were some unresolved issues between her and Kanaya that they needed to feelings jam out sometime. It wasn’t a good time. Vriska knocked again, harder.

“Oh fuck you, Rose! Open the fucking door!” Vriska’s voice rang out into the still night air but no sound came from inside the house.

June reached out and tried the door handle. It was unlocked. Vriska put a hand to her face and groaned.

“Of-fucking-course. She just forgot to lock it. Okay, fine… I guess we’re doing this.”

“I’m telling you, she’s sleeping it off.”

That’s an astute observation.   
Really? You think this is a good time NOW?   
Astute but incorrect.   
Fuck off.

The interior of the house was filthy. Bits and pieces of broken furniture were scattered around. What had once been decorative works of art were knocked off the walls or damaged in place. A few empty containers of food and considerably more of alcohol were littering the floor and shoved up against the walls.

Vriska had remembered Rose being a bit on the messy side, but this was clearly the work of someone who was dealing with some shit. A few books lay on the ground, some of them open to pages covered in scribbled pen. None of it meant anything to Vriska, and she doubted very much it meant anything to Rose either.

June led the way through the house, insisting that they try the bedroom first. It was the only place, she explained, that Rose really spent any time in anymore. It was also going to be filthy and Vriska should mentally prepare herself for that. Vriska had no issues with the filth – she just wanted Rose to pull her head out of her fucking ass and help them out. The least she could do was answer her fucking phone.

The door to Rose’s bedroom was on the second floor. The door had once been carved with her and Kanaya’s names – Kanaya’s had been scorched off at some point and Vriska didn’t doubt that it was Rose’s handiwork. The bedroom door was ajar, so June pushed it open and they stepped in. Something crunched under Vriska’s feet and she looked down to see a broken phone.

June was screaming.

Why was June screaming?

Vriska looked up and in the moonlight she got her answer.

Rose was slumped against the wall on the far side of the room. She wasn’t moving. June was next to her, and June was fucking screaming.

“ROSE! No! No no no no no!” June was shaking Rose. Vriska ran up and she could see that Rose’s eyes were open… open and unblinking – her hand still clutching what looked like a large chunk of purple fabric. Vriska knew that if she put a hand on Rose’s neck she would feel nothing but the cold, clammy skin of a corpse.

NO! How is this happening?!   
She is fucking immortal!

This wasn’t just. It wasn’t heroic. It was… it was…

June was crying and screaming and the sound was unlike anything Vriska had ever heard. She was cradling Rose’s body against her chest and that noise wasn’t stopping.

How is she dead?!   
I’m sorry.   
What the fuck?!   
Everything is breaking down.

Vriska felt something churn in her stomach. June was weeping into Rose’s hair and violently shaking. Rose’s lifeless eyes were staring at her. Accusing her. Looking right into her very soul.

“We… we’ve been through this before.” Her voice sounded so hollow and distant in her ears now. Everything was kind of getting dim around the edges.

Vriska turned, threw up on the floor, then fainted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vriska is talking to Terezi in the treehouse after having met up with her again in this cycle. Vriska also has an extensive conversation with the narrator, touching on the ideas of the cyclic nature of reality and the fact that each trip around this loop gets worse for everyone involved.
> 
> Vriska and Terezi continue their conversation about their feelings for each other and how bad things have been going to Rose in particular. Eventually, Vriska explains what happened to her during the events of The Forever Hole.
> 
> Vriska calls June, Callie, and Kanaya to come to the treehouse and tries to explain her theory about what's been happening. No one has been able to get in contact with Rose.  
> Vriska suggests going back to Dave and Karkat's house to figure out a plan. They all arrive and begin to talk. We are interrupted by the narrator who cuts away to tell us the specifics of their plans aren't important because Vriska was wrong about her assumptions.
> 
> The group eventually decides to fly to Rose's house and look for her. When they investigate, they find that Rose has died and her conditional immortality has somehow failed to bring her back.


	10. Callie (4th Cycle, dead of the night)

Waking up in the middle of the night had become par for the course of Callie. They had never been much of a dreamer, but all of that had changed since Rose drank herself to death. Her body had apparently sat undiscovered for days until June Egbert had decided to check in on her one day.

No one could even figure out _how_ that had even been able to happen. As far as any of them knew, the God Tier folks all still had their conditional immortality. Except it looked like it was a lot more conditional than it had been previously. Rose wasn’t coming back.

June hadn’t taken the discovery well. She had insisted that she needed time to process this and moved out of the house that she was sharing with Roxy and Callie. It made Callie indescribably sad, but they also knew how close June and Rose had once been. They had said they understood, and June had packed up to move in with Dave and Karkat for a while.

Callie would’ve said that Kanaya hadn’t taken the news well either, but no one was entirely sure where she _was_. She had moved out and then pretty much talked to no one. After Rose had hit her, she was already so…

Out of sorts?  
Have we talked before?  
This time around? No, I don’t think so.  
But yes, many times previously.

Kanaya wasn’t doing well was the point.

All of this weighed heavily on Callie, so they tended to wake up at weird times with strange thoughts. Roxy was still sleeping in the bed next to them, and they had no desire to wake her. Callie brushed a stray curl back into Roxy’s bonnet and carefully navigated out of the bed so as not to wake her up. Their computer was glowing in the corner of the room, and even from a distance they could see that the message window was blinking. Callie sat down in front of the computer and clicked over to the message that was waiting.

TG: yo, Cals, can you help me with something?  
UU: i am sorry for taking so long to respond. i was sleeping. are yoU there?  
…  
TG: yah  
TG: KK’s snoring like a motherfucking chainsaw up in here  
TG: can’t sleep anyway  
UU: what was it that yoU needed?  
TG: you heard from Kanaya lately?

Callie frowned at the monitor.

UU: not in qUite some time. she's been rather reclUsive.  
TG: no shirt  
TG: *shit  
TG: KK got some weird voicemail from her last night  
TG: figured it was just her in her feelings but shit’s bothering me

How many iterations of this have we been through?  
I think it’s… four or five now?

UU: are yoU concerned for her safety?  
TG: yeah, I kinda am  
TG: think she might hurt herself or some shit  
UU: i will let yoU know if she contacts me at all  
TG: dope

Callie stepped away from the computer and walked over to the bedroom window. The moon outside was casting its pallid glow over the world, causing the shadows to take on a strange life of their own.

You would consider it unnatural.  
What would I consider unnatural?  
The way things are right now.  
I don’t… I mean, I don’t _like_ it…  
But words like “natural” don’t mean much  
I really can’t recall speaking to you before.  
I wouldn’t expect you to.  
Ironic, considering you were the first one I was able to reach.  
If I were better at this I probably could’ve stopped all this.  
All of what?  
Just… everything I didn’t want to happen to everyone.

Callie walked back to the computer and sat in the chair, swiveling to face the window. None of this was making a whole lot of sense, and they were becoming increasingly frustrated.

You want to bother telling me who you are?  
That’s a hard question to answer.  
Trust me, I’ve got time.  
A narrator. A writer.  
Neat. I’m a writer too.  
I know. That’s why I was able to contact you first.  
...  
I think.  
...  
Now things are so thin I think I can pretty much talk to anyone.  
So why me?  
Story structure. Narrative convention. You’re the character we’re focused on.  
Has it occurred to you that I’m a person and not a character?  
That’s funny. You’re the second person to tell me that.

The computer screen blinked again. A new message.

TG: oh shit, KK got a call from Kanaya  
TG: she left another voicemail  
TG: same shit though  
TG: just kinda crying and making noise  
TG: I’ll keep you posted, Cals  
UU: thank yoU. i very mUch appreciate it!

Callie turned back to the window and groaned.

So you’re inside everyone’s heads…   
Tell me what’s happening right now.   
Why does everything feel so weird in the last year.  
I can’t.  
Can’t or won’t?  
Literally _can’t._ I’m so far outside of my depth that even holding onto this much…  
It takes a lot out of me.

Sometimes things just kind of… break down. And sometimes we can never return to how things were, or how we want them to be. Those are true statements, even if that sometimes hurts to hear.

But people often have a sense of what’s _supposed_ to be. A sense of right and wrong in universal terms. Terms that might be meaningless in a broad sense but that mean everything to a given individual.

The computer screen blinked again. She had a new message… from Terezi? There appeared to be several unread messages that she hadn’t seen previously. Callie started at the oldest one.

GC: H3Y, 1 N33D YOU TO W4TCH SOM3TH1NG FOR M3  
GC: 1 KNOW 1T SOUNDS W31RD BUT…  
GC: C4N YOU L3T M3 KNOW 1F YOU H34R FROM K4N4Y4?  
GC: 1 GOT 4 W31RD VO1C3M41L FROM H3R 34RL13R  
GC: 1'M WORR13D 4BOUT H3R

There was a very long break in the timestamps on the messages – several hours – and then they resumed.

GC: I Am Truly Sorry About That  
GC: I Have Heard From Kanaya Again And She Is Fine  
GC: In Fact Everything Is Fine And It Was Just A Misunderstanding

Callie felt cold all over. They glanced over at Roxy, still sleeping peacefully on the bed. Suddenly, they were _very_ worried.


	11. Kanaya Maryam (4th cycle, the afternoon before the phone calls)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains the description of the violent death of a major character.
> 
> It isn't graphically described, but it is described in such a way that it might be disturbing to those with that potential trigger.
> 
> If you want a brief description of the chapter with less detail on the triggering section, please check the end notes.

Kanaya was _always_ hungry now. For a month now, she’d fought against the urge to drink. She had fought _so hard_ , but she knew it was a fight she was destined to lose. She had tried animals in the forest, but the effect wasn’t the same. Part of her knew, deep inside, that it was probably all in her head. She’d never had this problem before…

Before…

Before Rose changed.

Before Rose died.

Why can’t I hear you anymore? Why aren’t you telling me how to FIX this?!

She kept trying to reach out, but every time she called she never knew what to say. Terezi. Karkat. June.

All of her friends. They’d been there for her when Rose had turned back to drinking and hit her. But then… she was gone. Kanaya wasn’t really there anymore.

Terezi had been standing in the field where Kanaya watched her for a while now. She often took walks to clear her head. Kanaya knew this because she’d been watching her for several days now. Despite Terezi’s keen hearing and sense of smell, Kanaya knew how to hide herself. Amazing what the Rainbow Drinkers were capable of when they truly let themselves become immersed in their abilities.

It was almost like Terezi was out there waiting for someone. That didn’t really make any sense, but it was a thought that Kanaya kept having.

After a while, Terezi walked off toward to the woods. Kanaya knew she had built a copy of her treehouse nearby. She wasn’t _supposed_ to know about it, but she did. Once Terezi left, Kanaya sat with her thoughts, in silence.

I wish you would say something…  
I don’t even know what you are…   
But I’m so lonely…  
Rose was…   
She mattered so much to me.   
I thought we were helping to keep each other on track.  
…  
I suppose I was wrong about that.   
Wrong about so many things so many times.

Kanaya was crying. She pulled out her battered phone and selected Terezi’s number from the contacts. The call went straight to voicemail.

Kanaya couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She just sat there crying into the phone, sobbing like a helpless wriggler who had lost her lusus. The voicemail ended automatically when the time ran out and Kanaya put the phone away, her entire body feeling numb.

So hungry. So tired. So lonely. Kanaya lay down in the warm grass and closed her eyes.

* * *

There is a striking connection between the idea of a narrative and the idea of linear time in life.

After all, the narrative is born out of the desire to re-create life’s patterns and nuances. That is one of the core conceits of all storytelling.

But unlike a story, we can’t keep going back and re-writing the narrative of our lives. We can’t keep trying again and again to see whether a subtle change will have a good impact or a bad one.

I feel like doing that would lead to disastrous results.

If you pull away a single leg, the table wobbles. Maybe some of the things on top fall off.

If you pull away another leg, the table falls. Everything comes crashing off of it.

After that, you’re really just picking it apart for scrap. The damage has already been done and it becomes gratuitous.

* * *

It was dark when Kanaya awoke and it was cold. The wind had changed and brought with it an unseasonal chill. The hunger was still there – if anything, it was worse than before. Clouding her mind. Making her thoughts… dark.

It was a few minutes before she realized that she’d been walking the path into the forest, heading towards Terezi’s treehouse. The treehouse that only a few people knew about. The isolated, hard-to-find treehouse. Except it wasn’t all that hard to find when you’d followed its owner there a few times.

In fact, it was quite easy to locate. Nestled in the trees, it looked like a perfect replica of Terezi’s old hive from Alternia. And she was inside. Crying?

Kanaya could definitely hear crying from inside. For a moment, Kanaya paused at the base of the ladder.

Are you there yet?  
Are you planning to stop me?  
To beg with me to reconsider?   
To talk about how this has all happened before?  
Which is quite convenient seeing as NONE of us can remember.

__

__

__

She climbed the ladder swiftly and silently, hoisting herself into a low crouch inside Terezi’s treehouse. The troll sat in a corner. She was cradling a small, stuffed red dragon and sobbing softly to herself.

__

__

__

“I know why you’re here.” Her voice was so far away – so incredibly hollow. “I know what you’ve been doing. Watching me.”

__

__

__

Kanaya felt herself starting to growl.

__

__

__

“It’s fine… she wasn’t there. Vriska was supposed to be there, I think. But something went wrong… so many things have gone horribly wrong. Why not one more on the pile?”

__

__

__

Her vision was starting to blur and darken.

__

__

__

“It’s fine… do what you have to do. I don’t care anymore.” She hugged the dragon plush, leaned forward, and whispered softly. “I love you, Vris… sorry I couldn’t tell you.”

__

__

__

Kanaya’s world went black.

__

__

__

Do you need the aftermath described to you? The blood and viscera – the overwhelming _smell_ of the place. The way that the teal splattered throughout the small treehouse. The marred chalk drawing of two young trolls holding hands that was on the wall.

__

_ _

__

_ _

__

Do you really need to have that picture painted so vividly in your mind?

__

_ _

__

_ _

__

Do you need to _hear_ the way that Kanaya screamed when she came to and realized what she’d done? Will that help you process what you’re witnessing? Will it help you to understand the grand scheme of things? The plan of the world?

__

_ _

__

_ _

__

Or… do you just need to learn to accept things the way they are. That the world simply is as it is. The sum of all of our decisions that ever were and ever will be. A linear illusion, created by the chemicals in our brains.

__

_ _

__

_ _

__

A prison, without escape.

__

_ _

__

_ _

__

Without hope.

__

__

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kanaya is outside watching Terezi and it is clear that Kanaya has fully succumbed to the Rainbow Drinkers desire to drink blood. Kanaya tried to call out to the narrator from before but receives no answer. She tried to call Terezi but when the call goes to voicemail, she curls up in the grass.
> 
> The narrator explains in a cut-away that stories are like life in some ways. The narrator compares it to a table that has had two of its legs removed, making it no longer able to support itself.
> 
> After this brief interlude, Kanaya wakes up and walks to Terezi's treehouse. When she climbs inside, Terezi reveals that she had been aware of Kanaya's presence all along but no longer cares what happens because Vriska didn't show up.
> 
> The scene fades to black from Kanaya's point-of-view and the narrator fills in, explaining that Terezi was killed but refusing to go into graphic details, asking us why it matters if we have all the details.


	12. Vriska Serket (the other place)

No! No! You can’t do this!   
You can’t make me watch this!   
I already played this fucking game!   
I’m not making you do anything.

“That’s bullshit,” Vriska said to me, resuming a familiar style of narrative interjection. I was only too happy to comply. In truth, I had grown somewhat fond of her rough company over our previous interactions. I wouldn’t necessarily admit to it, for fear of boosting her ego to the point of breaking, but I found her somewhat charming. In a… brusque kind of way.

“I assure you that I am not joking or making fun. Nor am I lying to you,” I said it calmly but plainly. She didn’t need me to coddle her. Not now. “But you are the one in control of this particular narrative. I am merely… an observer. A passenger, to use a vehicular metaphor I used once.”

Vriska was crumpled up on the ground and, had I not been a disembodied narrative device, I would have been sorely tempted to give her a big hug. She looked like she could use one right now… although, in light of her latest visions maybe that would be inappropriate.

“I just… I don’t understand this.” Vriska balled up a fist and slammed it into where the ground would be. She was once again in a featureless kind of plain – I think her mind felt more comfortable like this at the moment. I could understand why she didn’t want to conjure up the treehouse again.

“We had a plan! At the very least to help Kanaya deal with losing Rose. But I feel like… I feel like I already went through versions of this where Rose was fine. But every single time things just keep getting worse and worse. More and more people get hurt… because of me!”

I waited a moment to give her a chance to finish before I spoke. “Perhaps… have you considered  _ why _ all this keeps happening? Why your decisions ultimately lead you back to the exact same place?”

Vriska shook her head. I already knew she had not.

“What was the decision you made? I never actually asked.”

“I decided… to stay with Rezi and make up for all the bad shit I did in the past.”

“And how were you planning on doing that, exactly?”

Vriska shrugged – she looked utterly defeated. “I don’t know. By… helping them. However… just doing stuff they needed done and not being an asshole anymore. Being… considerate and shit.”

It was times like these I wished I had a proper head so I could nod sagely, but I settled on a nice “hmmm” instead.

“Perhaps,” I said, “you need some additional perspective. If you don’t mind…”

I’m going to break format here. It’s easier this way.   
You see, Earth-C is what we like to call a “post-scarcity” society.   
None of you want for anything physically.   
Alchemy and advanced science ensure you have more than enough for the people. You have mastered interstellar travel. Several of you have the powers of actual Gods! Of your little group, the only one who isn’t literally immortal is Karkat, and I’m sure you’ll figure out some way to extend his already-impressive troll lifespan. Just in case a thousand years of Karkat isn’t enough.

I think Dave would probably appreciate that.

I know. It was a joke.

In any case, the thing that matters most in such a society is self-actualization. The ability to realize one’s potential as a person and live up to it fully. Whether that involves creating art or serving others or simply loving one’s family. The individual is the one who determines what best fits the criteria.

So?

So I believe that you’re still looking at it from a position of filling the physical  _ needs _ of others. Helping to keep them safe and protect them. Provide for them. Fight the bad guys for them.   
But... 

None of your friends need that from you.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Several of your still-living friends – and I mean living in the post-Lord English-timeline sense, not the whatever-the-hell-you’re-doing-right-now-timeline sense – are ones you share extensive emotional baggage with.   
And yet, every single time you repeat this cycle your approach is basically to tell Terezi most of what happened here, tell the rest some of what happened here, and then your whole plan falls apart. That’s when the cycle starts again and all the subtle things you altered along the way become massive issues.

Are you really so dense that you can’t see it? You and your friends all need each other.   
You don’t need to do everything all by yourself. Self-reliance is great, but when taken to the extreme it becomes toxic and harmful. It pushes you away from others instead of building meaningful communities and relationships.

And you, Vriska Serket, are just about the worst when it comes to this.

“Oh fuck you.” She broke back to what was clearly a more normal, comfortable style of speaking for her. “What do you know?”

“I know how you can break the cycle.” That got her attention.

“No, I don’t believe you. Everyone was saying that the voice they heard – assuming that was you – didn’t seem to have the faintest clue what was going on.

“That was an issue of narrative juxtaposition and framework. When we’re here, I have significant control and perceptive abilities. Back in your “real” world, I can generally only communicate on a basic level and offer vague advice.”

“I still don’t believe you.”

Think of it this way.   
What do you have to lose?

Vriska was silent. Vriska was silent for a long time, her eyes closed and her mind lost in thought.

“Fine. I obviously haven’t been making the right decisions here… so help me figure this out.”

So I did.


	13. Kanaya Maryam (1st cycle, sometime in the mid-morning the day before the phone calls that might still happen)

Rose was out. Kanaya was alone. The house was quiet and peaceful. For the first time in a couple of days, she had the chance to be alone with her sewing. A matching set of suits for her and Rose, and it was an ambitious project. Kanaya was thrilled – she had nothing to do but take her carefully laid-out patterns and slowly convert them into beautiful finished garments. She’d started the project a year ago but had never had time to do much more than start the suit top for Rose. Now she had all the measurements and patterns set, she intended to make quick work of this.

Kanaya was no longer alone. The air shifted and she knew that someone was in the room with her. She turned, slowly, readying herself to strike at a moment’s notice. She turned, and her eyes grew wide.

“VRISKA?!” The troll stood before her, looking identical to the day she’d disappeared. Her clothes were unmarred by time or damage, and there were no signs of injuries on her. She hadn’t physically aged (not that she would’ve anyway, given her God Tier status), but she looked so very much older. Older than Kanaya thought possible.

“Hi, Kanaya.” The voice coming from Vriska sounded so distant and small. Kanaya had a hard time believe that this wasn’t just some kind of waking dream.

“Is that really you? Am I, perhaps, hallucinating? I did stay up later than normal working on this project and perhaps I am suffering the effects of sleep deprivation…”

Vriska smiled in spite of herself – a small smile, but a genuine one. “Yeah, it’s me. We need to talk and there’s not a ton of time to do it.”

Kanaya ran to the other end of her sewing room and grabbed a small stool for Vriska to sit on. Motioning her into it, Kanaya sat down across from Vriska and frowned.

“I must admit to a large degree of confusion. I do not understand why you are here or what you mean by all of this.”

Unexpectedly, Vriska reached both of her hands out towards Kanaya’s. Reluctantly, Kanaya held out her own and Vriska held her in a way that was… surprisingly tender. In spite of herself, Kanaya found herself blushing a little bit.

“I was cruel to you, back on Alternia.”

Kanaya blinked and said nothing. This wasn’t what she was expecting.

“I… I knew how you felt about me. I knew you were flushed for me… no, fuck that Alternian bullshit… I knew you were in love with me in one way or another.” Vriska looked supremely uncomfortable.

Kanaya bowed her head a little. “Yes. What you are saying right now is true. I had… very much of what Rose might have called a  _ crush _ on you. I was also a little bit afraid to tell you.”

“I knew you felt something like that, and I took advantage of it. I messed around with you and Tavros in a way that was… disgusting. I abused our relationships in order to do what  _ I _ wanted and didn’t care about what you felt.” Her breathing was becoming heavy and Kanaya felt her squeezing harder on her palms.

“I… I can’t say anything to Tavros anymore. Wherever he is, it’s not a place I can go right now. Believe me… while I was in that other place I tried so many times…”

The last thing made no sense to Kanaya, but she decided not to press the issue.

“But I can say something to you. And I treated you horribly too. I had… more than a little bit of a crush on you too, I think. And I played around with those feelings and I made you hurt.”

Kanaya looked straight at Vriska. “Yes, you did.”

Vriska was tearing up and looked down quickly.

“But,” Kanaya said quietly, “I also think that maybe you were dealing with some issues that you did not fully address. Those may not be excuses for your behavior, but I do believe that they are factors worth considering with regards to your desire to make amends for your actions. I assume that this is what you desire to do, yes?”

Vriska nodded. “Yeah… but, also… I don’t know. I want to do more than just make up for the shit I did that was bad. I also wanted to help… be a part of the community.” It still sounded weird to her, but the idea made sense.

Now was the part where she was going to sound crazy. She had one of these for each person she had to visit, and she was very much not looking forward to having to do this several times.

“Kanaya, I need you to listen very carefully to what I’m going to say. Try not to forget anything. I… I can’t tell you how I know this or how important it is, but I need you to trust me.”

Kanaya furrowed her brow, but she didn’t interrupt. Vriska took a deep breath.

“Rose is having the dreams again. More than normal. She’s not doing okay. She’s seriously thinking about drinking again…” Kanaya moved to speak but Vriska shook her head sharply. “Don’t let her start. You’re the auspistice here, so I’ll leave the specifics up to your judgment. But don’t let her close off from you and don’t let her start drinking again.”

She took another breath and stared directly into Kanaya’s eyes. “If you start feeling the urge to drink yourself, tell Rose immediately.”

Kanaya laughed. “Human alcohol has never been…”

Vriska shot her a look that said  _ shut the fuck up _ so she did. “You know damn well I don’t mean alcohol. I would imagine there are various ways to deal with your darker nature without harming anyone. Am I correct?”

Kanaya shrugged. There were… theories about that. Some had talked about relationships where the act was… consensual.

“Perhaps. There are ways to feed without killing the host. It takes discipline and both parties need to address certain… issues.”

“Fuck it, I don’t care. You want to get kinky with your wife to keep from turning into a fucking monster, go for it. I’m the last person to judge you. Just… however you deal with it, talk to Rose and be safe. Don’t let your condition get out of hand or you  _ will fucking kill someone _ .”

“I would never…” she looked at Vriska. The look in her eyes… she couldn’t quite place it, but it looked haunted.

“Kanaya… given the right circumstances, everyone breaks. I called you my friend once. I’d love to do that again… please don’t try to walk this path by yourself. It won’t end well. Trust me.”

There was silence then. Kanaya and Vriska looked at each other and Kanaya found herself turning the words over in her mind.

“Was there anything else?” she asked, her voice quite low now.

“Yeah, actually.” Vriska stood up and stretched, her back popping lightly. “I’m sorry about how I lead you on back then. I actually… actually really kinda wanted to be… like… your girlfriend. But… I don’t think it would’ve been good for either of us. I was such a bitch and Rose is really good for you.”

Vriska laughed. “Consider your relationship personally blessed by me, descendent of Marquise Spinneret Mindfang herself!” Vriska winked.

“Anyway, fussyfangs, I’ve gotta make some more stops before this thing is through.” Her face turned serious. “Don’t forget what I said. You and Rose can support each other. Neither of you… you don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to.”

Before Kanaya had a chance to respond, she was alone in the room again. But still, there was a lingering warmth and a familiar scent.

It had really happened.


	14. June Egbert (1st cycle, slightly earlier that morning)

If there was one thing that Earth-C had a lot of, it was open space! Sometimes, June liked to get up really early in the morning and just run and fly around in the open fields near her house. In fact, she was doing just that right now! No one was around, and she could just kick off her shoes and run barefoot through the grass. It was really an amazing feeling – a time she felt most like  _ herself _ .

Until she almost ran into Vriska Serket, who was unexpectedly standing in front of her.

June shouted and dropped back.

“Vriska what the HELL?!” She saw Vriska almost burst out laughing.

“Hey, June.”

June fell to the ground in the middle of the grass. But… then she couldn’t stay mad. She jumped up, rand over to Vriska, and gave her a big hug.

“Oh my GOD I missed you so much! When you went into the black hole and didn’t come out again and I thought you were dead. Terezi missed you most of all!”

Vriska hugged June back, then pushed back and sat down on the grass herself. June plopped down next to her, grinning. Suddenly, June’s expression changed. She’d forgotten to tell Vriska.

“Oh crap! I forgot… uh… Vriska… wait a minute. How did you know my name and all that?” Vriska was looking like she was thinking some pretty big thoughts.

“June… I’ve been away for a long time in a place I couldn’t understand, but while I was over there, there were still things I found out about this world. And I kept coming back here – over and over again. And every time I would come back here, I’d forget a piece of what I needed to know. Can we… can we talk for a little bit. It’s nice out here.”

June grinned. “Sure! What do you want to talk about? How much Con Air actually kind of sucks? I’m kidding – we can talk about other movies or games or something. Did you know the Carapacians actually invented an old Atari 2600?!”

“No, June. Like… a feelings jam.”

June furrowed her eyebrows and nodded seriously. “Oh, okay. Sure. Sure. We can do that. Sorry, I just got… I just get really excited.”

“I know.” Vriska took a second to collect her thoughts. “So… I feel like we left things in kind of a weird place when we left. The whole thing with dating you… or the alternate you. And all the stuff about bringing me back and everything. And then what happened after the retcon… I just feel like we never really got a chance to talk all of that through. You know?”

Vriska looked like she was really trying to think this over, but she also didn’t look like she was sure what to say. She was in luck! June Egbert had been thinking about these very topics for years!

“Hey, Vriska. So… I was kinda going through a lot of stuff a few years back when I started coming out as trans… that’s the human word for…”

“I know…” Vriska responded quietly. “I am too. I mean… trans. I never told you.”

June couldn’t help herself from grinning. She leaned over and hugged Vriska again.

“OH MY GOD! That’s great!” After a minute of hugging Vriska and muttering happily, June sat back and collected herself, trying very hard to look serious and conceal the fact that she was absolutely giddy to have her friend back.

“Uh, so yeah… when I was coming out, I did a lot of thinking about myself. A lot of thinking about my past. And you came up a lot. And I think I realized something. I think maybe I was kind of in love with you once. Or at least had a crush on you.”

Vriska took a sharp breath.

“But… I think it’s better we didn’t end up together or anything. I remember what you said about us dating in the dream bubble and that sounded real fun. But… it also sounded like we were both kind of lonely.”

June looked closely at Vriska. She didn’t look like this thought had occurred to her before.

“June…” Vriska was speaking so quietly that June had to lean in to hear. “I think you might be right about that.”

“Right?!” June smiled. “I think we were both lonely and we were friends anyway so we decided to try out dating and all that. But I don’t think we worked well for that. But you’re still one of my best friends.”

Vriska kind of pursed her lips and made a little smacking noise with her mouth. “Yeah… y’know… fuck it. I think you’re exactly right. We’re good friends… maybe… maybe not so great at being girlfriends.

June stuck out her hand, pretending to be a distinguished gentlemen of old English stock. Vriska grinned and stuck out her own hand the same way. They shook.

“I say, my good chap,” June started. “Let us be the best of friends.”

“I say, I say, my good fellow,” Vriska responded. “That is a capital idea! Most capital!”

The two of them started laughing, leaned in, hugged each other tightly, then fell back onto the grass as they laughed. After a while, they subsided into a quiet silence as they lay on the dewy grass and listened to the birds in the distance.

“Hey, June, there was something else I needed to tell you. It might sound kinda weird, but it’s super important.”

June shrugged. There was basically nothing Vriska could tell her that would be weirder than most of the stuff she’d already seen.

“I know you’re living with Callie and Roxy now. Talk to Callie and ask them if they’ve been hearing any kind of voice interjecting into their thoughts. I’m going to talk to them next, but I need you to mention this specifically. It needs to come from you.”

“Also, please take look in on Rose. I’m talked to Kanaya about her… well, I will in a couple hours. Long story. But she’s struggling with some stuff she’s not talking about, and she’s going to need support. Have Roxy check in on her too – Roxy’s really good for her. All of you can help keep her where she needs to be. Just like she’d help any of you.”

That all sounded pretty reasonable to June. She wasn’t the type to just let her friends slip under the waves without at least trying to help them back.

“Yeah, sure Vriska – we’ll all help Rose out.”

“Kanaya too. She’s dealing with some stuff that I feel might involve a… uh… more intimate solution in the long run, but if she starts looking worn or like she’s losing her usual fussyfangs attitude, then figure out what’s wrong and help her out.”

June reached over and put her hand on Vriska’s shoulder. “Hey, sure! I’ll make sure everyone keeps everyone else good! And Vriska…”

“Mmmm?”

“Thanks for, ah… thanks for trusting me enough to come out to me. That’s… that’s a big deal to me.”

“Anytime… I care a lot about you, June Egbert. Just wish I’d said it earlier, you know?”

“It’s fine. You said it now.”

She heard Vriska laugh. “Yeah. I gotta go now, June… I’m really sorry. If everything goes well, I’ll see you again soon. Can’t fuck this one up, you know?”

June turned to respond, but Vriska was already gone. There was a large Vriska-shaped impression in the still-wet grass.

It had really happened.


	15. Callie (1st cycle, shortly thereafter)

June was out doing her windy running thing. Roxy was kind of a night owl and would stay asleep until late morning. Callie had a chance to sit down in their study and write. They had recently been introduced to the world of wizard fiction by Rose and wanted very much to try their own hand at it. In fact, they might have suggested a friendly wizard fiction competition between the two. They knew for a fact that Rose had already started her piece, so Callie knew that they had little time to waste.

Trolfo strode into the atrium of the College of the Learned, wand grasped tightly in his hand. He still had the scars where Maelvium’s ward-blast had hit him all those years ago, but he was no longer the small boy wizard he had once been. In fact, he had grown to be one of the most powerful

Callie stopped. Someone else was in the house.

“Vriska.” Callie didn’t even bother to turn. They’d been expecting this. “I thought you wouldn’t show up until later.”

“I had to do this now. I need to speak to you alone. Roxy will be waking up soon and I still need to make one more stop at a pretty specific time.”

“Okay, that makes sense. I won’t offer you tea then. Not out of rudeness, of course, but because you’re on a very strict timeline. Right?”

Callie saved the document on their computer and turned to look over at Vriska. They basically knew what to expect from what they’d been told earlier. Not that anyone would believe it, but it was still the truth.

Vriska narrowed her eyes. “You knew I was coming. You  _ have _ been hearing that voice.”

Callie nodded. There was no point in lying. Strangely, Vriska looked immensely relieved to hear this.

“Oh thank fuck! I was hoping I wasn’t going to have to explain this all again. I had other stuff I needed to talk to you about anyway and I already told June to talk to you about the voice-in-your-head bullshit. Listen to her, by the way. She fucking loves you, Callie. Her and Roxy. Lucky bitch!”   
  
Callie grimaced a bit at the last bit, but they did appreciate the sentiment all the same.

“What else did you want to talk about?”

Vriska grinned. “Writing, of course. Well… fiction in general, I think. Or stories. Fuck, just let me ask you some questions.”

Callie motioned to a nearby table and waited for Vriksa to take a seat. They sat down across from her. “What did you have in mind?”

“Not to get all weirdly meta on you or any of that shit but… do you ever wonder if we’re all just characters in each other’s stories? Like, do the things we think and do actually  _ matter _ at all?”

Callie tented their fingers and looked at Vriska.

“I don’t think the  _ question _ matters.” Vriska looked confused, so Callie continued. “Look – I love arguing about philosophy and fiction and metaphysical stuff… but at the end of the day, who cares? If we’re there to support each other and help each other up when we fall, then the question of who’s writing our narratives doesn’t matter.”

“Why?” Vriska still looked confused.

“Because we  _ all _ are. Writing our own stories, influencing the stories of others, collaborating and revising and rewriting and all of that. If one person tries to take too much of that – either out of a sense of control or a sense of responsibility for others – that’s when bad things start to happen.”

Callie was studying Vriska’s face as they spoke.

“That voice I’ve been hearing – it has to do with what happened to you in the black hole, doesn’t it?”

Vriska nodded.

“And when you leave and finish… whatever it is you have to do… I’m not going to hear it anymore.”

Vriska shrugged. “I hope so, but I’m honestly not sure.”

“Good enough. For what it’s worth, Vriska, I don’t think you’re a bad  _ person _ . I think you did some truly horrible things… but I also believe that you’re genuinely trying to make things right, in your heart.”

“I… might have screwed that up pretty badly before. I think I kept trying to find ways to fix everything myself. I felt so shitty for how I messed things up. I wanted to make up for it.”

Callie smiled at Vriska – they were glad that she seemed to be coming around on this.

“I understand that you’ve had a long time to reflect. It’s natural that you would want to try to take this burden on yourself. An act of contrition and penance. But penance isn’t always strictly necessary. Sometimes it’s better to simply come back as a better person. Put all the fire-irons away and talk it as best you can.”

“Yeah… I’ve been getting the feeling that I was being kind of a shit about that before. Even after everything.”

“I’m sure you had good intentions, but those are often overvalued. Personally, I prefer when folks are more deliberate and considerate and less… hot-headed.” Vriska was fidgeting uncomfortably in her chair at that comment. Callie extended their hand to Vriska, who reached out and grasped it lightly.

“We’ve all lived so many lives. We’ve crammed decades or centuries of life into twenty years or so. Do you think that’s going to happen without any negative consequences at all? Do you think all this looping and doubling-back and retconning is just going to slide by without leaving some scars?”

Vriska stared at them.

“We are all broken people, Vriska. Not just you. You can either try to act like a martyr and destroy yourself… or you can join the rest of us and have some chance at being whole for the first time in your life.” Callie shrugged as they finished and smiled – a gesture that was equal parts sweetness and sadness.

Vriska stared.

Vriska stared.

Vriska smiled.

Without another word, Vriska vanished.

Callie, their writing momentarily forgotten, sat alone in their study and waited for what would come next. They didn’t need a reminder that this had really happened – they had been expecting it all along.


	16. Vriska Serket (1st cycle, the afternoon before the phone calls that might still happen)

Vriska had never been more terrified in her life of having to do something. Playing the game. Facing off against Bec Noir. The Condesce. Lord English. She had never really felt all that  _ scared _ of what she had to do. She supposed it was a probably-unhealthy dose of overconfidence on her part.

But she was genuinely scared of having to have this conversation with Terezi again. Not because she thought it might go badly, but because the loop might start all over again. Or, even worse, the loop was broken but it would still lead to the same bad outcomes.

It had seemed so simple in that other place – the idea of just making a decision and moving forward. Turned out that life was a little bit more complex than that. There’s a difference between theory and practice, and that difference is vast and wide.

There was no more voice to help guide her. The other place seemed to be mostly closed off. She was blinking between where she needed to go, but it seemed like the course had already been set and she was just following it now. Besides, this was the last stop on the line.

She’d definitely been through  _ this _ before. More times than she wanted to count.

But… it still hurt her heart to see Terezi standing in the middle of the field like that. This time she didn’t drop in so close to her. It was probably better this way. It gave Vriska a chance to get her nerves in order.

She walked closer. Terezi turned, suddenly.

“Vriska?!” Vriska froze in place. Terezi’s face broke out into a massive grin and she was running. She took the last few feet in a leap and was in Vriska’s arms. This was not what Vriska had been expecting.

“Vris! I can’t believe it! I missed you so much. I thought I was never going to see you again.” Yeah, she was definitely crying. Not delicately either – tears were just  _ streaming _ down her cheeks. She buried her face against Vriska’s shoulder. “I thought I’d never get to tell you. I love you, Vriska.”

Definitely not what she had been expecting.

“Come on, let’s go,” Terezi jumped out of Vriska’s arms and grinned even wider – if that was even possible. “I’ve got a place nearby we can go that’s  _ awesome _ and you’ll love it.”

Vriska didn’t want to do this part, but she knew she had to. “I know. It’s your treehouse but Jade made a copy of it. There’s a couple things that’re different though. You drew a picture of us holding hands…”

Vriska shuddered briefly as a memory of another version of these events played over in her mind. A version where that picture was spattered in teal.

“...a picture you drew because I’m amazing and you’re a dork and maybe we’re both actually really in love with each other and too stupid to tell each other before now.”

Terezi started to respond but Vriska put up a finger.

“And I’d love to go to your treehouse and sleep in the blanket pile or whatever but… we can’t do that right now. Let’s sit.”

Together, they sat on the warm grass. Vriska reached out and took both of Terezi’s hands in hers.

“So… I kinda had a  _ lot _ of time to think about stuff. About… well, basically everything. But also, shit… I thought about  _ us _ a lot.” Terezi was smiling. That was a good sign.

“We kept ending up in these fucked-up cycles – violence leading to more violence and shit like that.” Terezi winced at that – no doubt this was bringing up some painful memories on both ends of the whole violence thing.

“But… ah…” she couldn’t believe she was about to channel some of the shit she learned from the other place. If that asshole was still seeing this, she hoped that fucker was good and proud.

“I think maybe we did the same thing with each other. Like… a cycle of loving each other and then that flared out.” Terezi wasn’t smiling anymore. Vriska tried to smile herself and squeezed Rezi’s hands. “Shit… I’m not breaking up with you or anything, dumbass.”

Terezi looked shocked, but then she grinned. “Oh no… I’m pretty amazing. That would be hard to believe.” Yep. That was the person she was in love with all right.

“But, also, I’ve been through this a bunch of times. I kept coming back to this same place at this same time and we hugged and kissed and made love confessions and hung out together and then told everyone else what was happening. Except it always ended up making things worse. Every time it cycled again, things got a little bit worse. And then, finally, I wasn’t able to show up here and you went back alone and…”

Vriska looked down and squeezed Rezi’s hands  _ hard _ .

“You died. And I think I maybe fucking lost it a little bit. But then I realized something…”

She took a deep breath. She’d had lots of time in the other place, but this kind of honesty still felt brand new.

“I think maybe part of the problem is I just thought that we could just kind of love each other a whole lot and everything else would slot into place. But then I talked to everyone else and really  _ saw _ what they were going through. How Rose and Kanaya support each other. How Callie and June and Roxy all complement each other’s weirdness. Even how Dave and Karkat seem so weirdly at peace with each other’s bullshit all the fucking time.”

“So… I figure that it’s because they’re all working to  _ support _ each other, not just  _ love _ each other. And…” why the hell was this making her blush so much? This was hoofbeast shit!

“I figure… maybe we could do that with each other. Support each other and shit. And… go on dates and stuff. Maybe… maybe move in together at some point. You know… just to try it out and see. If you want to.” Vriska ended with a kind of “pfff” noise and frowned. This was silly.

Except that Terezi wasn’t laughing or frowning or making fun of her. Instead, she was grinning from ear to ear and her face was completely flushed. She gathered herself up and adopted a serious face, raising her eyebrows and wiggling her nose a bit.

“Council is willing to accept opposing council’s proposal on one condition…”

“What?”

Terezi leaned in and kissed Vriska on the lips. Vriska closed her eyes and leaned into it, letting herself fall back onto the grass.

All around them was the sound of the world. The wind rushed through the trees and the birds chirped here and there as they flew about their daily business.

But there was no voice from the other place. No commentary on their lives or ominous foreshadowing of horrors to come.

I feel like they all deserve good things, generally speaking. And I’d like to think that, for once, they were able to help each other achieve those things.

We’ve never been through this before – from here on out their decisions are entirely up to them.


	17. A Letter from Kanaya Maryam (a year after the phone calls definitely did not happen)

Rose,

I am writing this letter because I think you will appreciate it more while you are away on your trip than if I were to just write you a text. It is absolutely the kind of thing that I feel you would greatly enjoy. Also I am very much enjoying writing it.

While you are doing important things with the Carapacian government, other somewhat-less-important-but-still-important things have been happening back at home.

Did you know that Vriska and Terezi are talking about getting married? I did not entirely believe it at first – in fact I very much thought it was one of their jokes. I thought for quite a while that they were just extending their commitment to their “bit” by considerably more than usual.

Except that Terezi asked me to make her a suit and then Vriska asked me to make her a dress. They seemed very taken with the idea of a wedding in particular after Vriska looked at the photos from our own wedding.

So that is perhaps a thing that will be happening soon. If it does, I hope that you can attend. It would be very fun, I think!

I hope that Callie, June, and Roxy are all taking good care of you. I can think of no better group of people to ensure that the Carapacians achieve their goals of self-governance! It fills me with such pride to see the people I care so deeply about doing such great things!

Regarding certain other… matters… I am pleased to tell you that I have not had the urge to drink since you have left. Our… particular way of dealing with the issue has been quite effective. Dare I say, I am actually quite thrilled with the way things have worked out. I miss you and am very much looking forward to further exploring this when you return. I would say the prospect is quite… exciting.

(I am blushing as I write this because of the suggestive nature of what I am writing. I feel that is important to fully appreciate this)

I will refrain from talking more about that until you come back. Rest assured that I love you very much and you are never far from my thoughts… both private and less-so.

(Imagine an awkward wink or similar emotive gesture here, for effect.)

Your Love,

Kanaya

P.S. I hope you enjoy the suit!


	18. A Letter from Rose LaLonde (a response penned two days later)

Darling Kanaya,

I do enjoy the written page as a means of talking to you. I feel like it allows me to fully stretch my legs of communication in a way that a cramped screen simply doesn’t allow. There’s a kind of expressiveness that is unparalleled. Which is to say that I love your idea so I’m writing you back!

The Carapacians have been welcoming hosts in their new capital. While I am somewhat sad to see so many of our old friends moving from Cantown proper, I am overjoyed that they have found such renewed purpose in their many public works projects.

Not only have June, Roxy, and Callie been instrumental in helping to plan out their new country, Jade has been helping them with physical construction. Dave and Karkat keep showing up in their ridiculous car to offer random pieces of advice like a couple of old men. They are such weirdoes and I’m glad that they found each other, because I doubt very much that anyone else could stand them! (imagine a nice big wink here – I’m not being serious)

If Vriska and Terezi decide to hold a wedding, I will absolutely have to attend! There is simply no other possible option than for me to attend. Also, you will have to attend as well. We will both have to attend, and we will both have to be dressed impeccably so as not to disappoint the masses who follow our every move! Dearest Kanaya, if you happen to be working on any more projects for just such an occasion I would be forever grateful and would repay my gratitude in whatever manner you saw fit! (imagine another wink here, maybe a bit of a suggestive one)

On a serious note, I haven’t had any dreams lately. If I do, I will call you right away. I also haven’t had the urge to drink at all, which is hugely reassuring. I didn’t forget what you said and will get somewhere safe with June if I can’t deal with something on my own. Also, I know I can call you at any time without judgment. I don’t know how to tell you how much that means to me.

With regards to the more risqué part of your letter, I am outraged that you would make such suggestions. I am but a delicate flower (hence my name) and would never be so base as to indulge in certain… vampire-related fantasies on a regular basis with an extremely attractive woman who I also happen to be married to. I would never suggest that the fact that it both benefits her greatly and brings us both immense pleasure is an extremely happy set of circumstances.

These are things I would never say, because I am a pure and delicate flower who would never entertain such thoughts. (you will have to imagine both the giant wink and shit-eating grin I have on my face right now, sorry).

Rest assured that I love you just as much as you love me, and I believe that our thoughts are very much identical in many respects.

(I blew you a kiss)

With Love and Affection from Your Wife,

Rose

P.S. I fucking LOVE the suit! It is SO beautiful, much like its creator! (big wink!)


	19. A Letter From Vriska Serket (sent to several recipients about a week later)

Hey 8ulge-Munchers!

Do you want to party?!

Do you want to eat food?!

Do you want to cele8r8 true fucking love?!

Come to the marriage of Vriska Serket and Terezi Pyrope

(or you’re all losers!)

Details inside, gifts are not required (Terezi made me write that >::::( )

Karkat com8 your fucking hair for once!


	20. A Chat Between Dave Strider and Karkat Vantas

CG: WHAT THE FUCK DID SHE MEAN BY THAT?!   
CG: THE HAIR THING?!   
TG: yo, I think she just wants us looking groomed and fly as fuck   
TG: for their dope-ass nuptial celebration!   
CG: I GUESS. SHE WAS STILL AN ASS ABOUT IT   
TG: do you not want to go anymore?   
CG: …   
CG: …   
CG: OF COURSE WE’RE GOING TO FUCKING GO. WHERE’S MY COMB?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to end this one on a light-hearted note, since it went to so many dark places!
> 
> If you've read all this way, I want to personally thank you! I know it's a lot, and your support means everything to me!

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Please feel free to leave a comment - I'm always happy to hear from my readers and will try to respond to all comments where appropriate!
> 
> For more general bullshit (and fan art), please check out my social media:
> 
> Twitter: www.twitter.com/AltUniverseWash  
> DeviantArt: www.DeviantArt.com/AltUniverseWash  
> Tumblr: TransKanayaMaryam.tumblr.com


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